


Two Roads Diverged

by icedteainthebag



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: F/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-27
Updated: 2009-11-26
Packaged: 2017-10-21 19:06:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 10
Words: 34,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/228606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icedteainthebag/pseuds/icedteainthebag
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes we make mistakes when we think we're doing the right thing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2009 [](http://bsg-bigbang.livejournal.com/profile)[**bsg_bigbang**](http://bsg-bigbang.livejournal.com/).
> 
> I have an excessive number of amazing people to thank. I'll only put this on the first chapter so you don’t have to read it ten times over. This story was inspired by a drabble I wrote for [](http://nnaylime.livejournal.com/profile)[**nnaylime**](http://nnaylime.livejournal.com/). From 100 words comes 34,000. Who knew?
> 
> Thanks to [](http://sleepismyfriend.livejournal.com/profile)[**sleepismyfriend**](http://sleepismyfriend.livejournal.com/) for intimidating me into signing up ;). [](http://somadanne.livejournal.com/profile)[**somadanne**](http://somadanne.livejournal.com/) and [](http://dashakay.livejournal.com/profile)[**dashakay**](http://dashakay.livejournal.com/) , thank you for your incredible insight and grammar skills. [](http://meryl-edan.livejournal.com/profile)[**meryl_edan**](http://meryl-edan.livejournal.com/) , thank you for pushing me, for helping me keep Laura real, and for enduring bitchfacing. And [](http://tjonesy.livejournal.com/profile)[**tjonesy**](http://tjonesy.livejournal.com/) and [](http://larsfarm77.livejournal.com/profile)[**larsfarm77**](http://larsfarm77.livejournal.com/) , you both rock my world, thank you for the beta awesomeness. _"This is just bare bones, right? You're not done."_
> 
> Thanks to my cheerleading section: my FL that supported me greatly. [](http://snoopy0917.livejournal.com/profile)[**snoopy0917**](http://snoopy0917.livejournal.com/) , [](http://ddagent.livejournal.com/profile)[**ddagent**](http://ddagent.livejournal.com/) and [](http://i-am-davnee.livejournal.com/profile)[**i_am_davnee**](http://i-am-davnee.livejournal.com/) bore the greatest burdens through this process. Thank you. And a quick shout-out to the bigbang bad girls. ;)
> 
> Finally, **Pinochet, you are an asshole.**

New Caprica was dark but rarely silent. The hum of the ship had been replaced by the sounds of life surrounding her—a baby's distant cry, groups of people walking too close to her tent, the thunder rolling across the nearby hill that meant in the morning, she'd be trudging through ankle-deep mud and ruing the day she stepped foot on this miserable, "habitable" wasteland.

Ellen Tigh lay awake on her cot alone and wondered why she wasn't more thankful for the firm ground under her feet.

This being alone thing had not been her plan when it was announced the Fleet would colonize New Caprica. She'd been initially excited about the idea—a place to land, Saul taking a break from _Galactica_ , the two of them shacking up together again like they were college kids. Living it up as much as they could, maybe even enjoying life a little bit together.

 _Yeah, that didn't happen._

Their first argument had been about going planetside in the first place, even before frakkin' Gaius Baltar won the presidential election. Saul didn't want to live on New Caprica, but gave her an out. He told her to go ahead and settle if she wanted, told her to go ahead and frak around if she wanted.

It wasn't what she wanted at all. All she wanted was him. He never really understood that.

She knew Saul had spent more time in the air than he had on the ground. He was used to being on a ship, day in, day out, not seeing the sun, not feeling the wind on his face.

She wasn't used to it, nor did she want to settle for a life sitting around in the XO's quarters, waiting for him to come home and tell her about his daily adventures in the CIC with his good buddy Bill Adama.

So when people started settling on the planet, she decided to show him he was not going to keep her around as his ship wife anymore. She was never one to be kept.

She'd told Saul her decision to settle and he'd arranged for a tent on the ground, a tent of their own. It wasn't much—canvas and a cot, some blankets and some rugs—but it wasn't a Battlestar. For that, she was fairly happy.

 _But not completely happy._

The second argument was proving to be the kicker. She'd known it would be when she started in with him, arguing endlessly about taking a break from his XO duties.

Sure, he would come down for a few days at a time, mostly meeting with Galen and Sam about establishing some sort of underground communications…whatever, to keep in touch with Bill, of course. Then he'd come back to the tent and they'd have some dinner, frak, reminisce about old times, and for a few fleeting moments it felt like a real kind of life, a life she could get used to.

And then he'd go back up to the ship, back to being the Admiral's dancing monkey, and she was left alone.

 _Again._

Nothing ever changed. She didn't know why she tried to convince him, every time he came down to see her, that maybe Bill didn't need him as much as he thought. That the Cylons were gone and everybody was safe. She would try her hardest to keep her tears at bay while she listed all the reasons she needed him more than Bill did. Sometimes she'd even throw in a few implied threats, like how handsome the pyramid players were looking or how the guy from the vegetable cart at the market gave her a once-over that morning while she picked up potatoes.

Those tactics didn't work back on Picon and they weren't working here either. He always left. He was devoted to the ship, devoted to Bill, devoted to his career and all of the exciting things it involved that consequently, didn't involve her at all.

This was not the way she wanted things to be.

The next time Bill came down—when he wasn't busy frakking the ex-President, that is—she and he would have a heart-to-heart talk.

x x x x

When Ellen saw Bill one morning at random in the market, he was looking at a basketful of bread. This didn't surprise her, but made her smile even more than the idea of Bill without Laura around.

 _That'll make things easier._

"Hey, stranger," she said, walking up to him and putting a hand on his arm.

He turned to her, his look of confusion ebbing into one of restrained greeting. He always regarded her with a sense of incredulity and it pissed her off. "Ellen. It's nice to see you."

"Well, it's nice to see _you_ ," she said with a grin. "How's Laura?"

Bill didn't bristle, but she felt the muscle under the sleeve of his jacket tense up. Even though it was safe for Bill and Laura to be together since Laura wasn't President, they seemed to be keeping things on the down low.

 _It's okay, flyboy. Nobody out here cares who you're frakking._

"She's good," he finally answered.

 _I'll bet she is._

"Wanted some bread for lunch," he added.

"Oh, and she cooks, too," Ellen teased. "Haven't you found yourself a keeper?"

 _Maybe she could keep you a little busier._

"She does what she can," he said, giving her a half-smile. He picked up a loaf of bread and tossed a cubit into the basket in front of the vendor with a nod.

"So say we all," Ellen replied with a soft laugh. "Listen, Bill, before you run off to be with your woman, would you mind having a bit of a chat with me in private?"

He looked her over and began to walk. She walked alongside him, waiting for his response.

"What's up?" he asked, tucking the bread between his elbow and waist.

"Is this as private as we're gonna get?" she asked.

"Yes," he responded immediately.

She sighed. No sense in arguing with Bill when he was in one of his difficult moods. She knew he had a tendency to have a one-track mind, and she was fairly certain which track he was cruising on as he wandered back toward Laura's tent.

"Okay. It's about Saul. I want him down here with me."

Bill looked over at her. "You talk to him about this already?"

She nodded, her stomach fluttering. "I did. He won't listen to me. But he'll listen to you."

Bill let out a low chuckle. "Since when?"

They turned down a walkway between mess hall tents, and Ellen was pleased that he'd taken a detour to hear her out. She sighed deeply as she slowed to a stop. He turned to face her, looking amused.

"Listen, Bill, we all know it's pointless to have him up there," she said. "There's nothing for him to do. He's going to drive himself frakkin' nuts. Down here he can have a purpose. Gods know the Colonists need all the help they can get."

"So you think Saul should commit himself to building houses full time? Maybe digging some drainage ditches?"

Ellen let out an exasperated sigh.

 _Sometimes you are so thick in the head._

"Bill, I'm frakkin' serious." She rolled her eyes. "Please, for once, take me seriously because I think I'm right. Saul needs you to let him go."

Bill's expression changed. She knew that look well. They'd known each other too long for her not to know when Bill Adama was seriously contemplating whether the decision he was about to make was not only right for the individuals involved, but for the entirety of the Fleet.

That was the way Bill always worked. Every whole was the sum of its parts.

"I could use a man on the ground," he said. "Make sure things are running smoothly. That frakker Baltar certainly isn't holding up his end of the bargain."

"People know Saul," she urged. "They like Saul. They can relate to him."

She was laying it on thick.

 _Think of the people, Bill._

"So you want me to tell him to stay planetside from now on?" Bill asked. "Kick him the hell off my ship?"

She smiled. "You might want to be a little gentler than that."

"What, you think he can't handle a direct order?"

"It'll be hard for him to leave. He loves the ship." _He loves you._ "It's his life."

"No, Ellen," Bill answered. "You're his life."

"Then tell him he needs to stay down on New Caprica with his wife and start living," she said.

She saw it in his face, if only for an instant—a flash of sadness, maybe regret. He covered it well, quickly looking down at the loaf of bread under his arm. She leaned closer and slid her hand up to his shoulder.

"Maybe we all need to start living a little more, Bill."

He was still for a moment. Then he shrugged and she pulled her hand away.

"I'll talk to Saul."

Ellen stood up straight. "Thank you."

She watched him, his mind somewhere else. Her lips parted to speak.

"I've got to get back," he said. "Don't want to be in the doghouse tonight."

She laughed and swallowed the lump in the back of her throat. "Something tells me the last place a person'd want to be is in Laura Roslin's doghouse."

He looked up at her and smiled. "You have no idea."

x x x x

 **  
_Two weeks later_   
**

Ellen was happy.

She snuggled closer to Saul, running her fingers over the thin cotton covering his chest, drawing circles, tracing patterns. She buried her nose in his neck, relishing the new, earthy smell of him—dirt and sweat from a day's worth of work around the camp. Colonizing was hard work, she’d realized as she watched it from afar. She'd felt out of place when she'd tried to help at first, the stares of others making her blush as she struggled with a shovelful of dirt.

Her skills at construction may have been nil, but there was no way she'd let Saul come home without having some sort of meal on the table, even if it was cold.

 _And maybe some frakking afterward._

"This is it," she murmured against his skin.

"Hmm," he grumbled, running his finger down her spine.

"This is us," she said, nudging her chin against his shoulder. "What I've always wanted. Right here." She patted his chest once for emphasis.

"Oh yeah?" Saul asked. He sounded tired, but amused. "Cuddled in a shoddy canvas tent for warmth with a belly full of watery soup while the wind whistles through the flaps?"

Ellen grinned and kissed his cheek.

"Sharing a toilet with five hundred other stinking Colonists?" he added.

She laughed and tucked her hand around his torso, pulling herself tightly against him. There were so many things she could say, but when it came to their relationship, they were people of few words. It had often been better that way.

"You and me," she said. "No ship, no Fleet, no crew. No Bill. No distractions."

He hummed in acknowledgment and breathed deeply.

"Do you realize how long it's been since we shared a moment outside of all that?"

He pressed his lips against the top of her head and kissed it. "I don't remember."

"Mmmm." She snuggled into him and wrapped a leg around his thigh. "I don't have to share you now. And it makes me so happy, Saul, even if we are suffering it out on this miserable excuse for a planet."

"It'll get better." His fingers tickled her side and she sighed, her skin tingling under his touch.

"I know," she drawled. "But godsdamn, what I wouldn't give for a pedicure right now."

"Aw, woman. I'm sure you look fine." Saul ran his hand across her hip and cupped her ass through the thick cotton of her nightgown.

 _And what I wouldn't give for some lingerie._

"I don't know," she teased, feeling a familiar slow burn kindling within her. She snagged his earlobe between her teeth. "There are a few things in a state of disrepair."

"Well," he chuckled, "I'm quite the handyman now."

"Mm-hm." She felt him pushing up the edge of her nightgown, his palm sliding over the bare skin of her thigh. She whimpered into the skin of his neck, encouraging him.

 _This is home. What it was always meant to be._

Saul shifted and rose over her, elbows planted above her shoulders. She ran her hands up his strong arms, thinner than usual, but bound by muscle. He lowered his face to hers and kissed her.

"I'm gonna check out this state of disrepair," he growled. "See if there's anything I can take care of down there."

"Good hunting, Colonel," she breathed with a smile.

 _Gods, I love looking into your eyes._

Saul drew the blanket off of her and kissed her neck. She sighed softly as he pushed her nightgown up to graze his teeth along her stomach.

"Did I ever tell you how glad I am I married you?" he teased, planting kisses around her navel.

 _A familiar line._

An automatic response slipped past her lips. "Not once."

"Oh," he said, kissing along the edge of her underwear. "Well, then, I'll save it for a special occasion."

Shivering first at the night air that caressed her skin, she soon shivered under his mouth and hands. He made her feel like a woman—powerful yet vulnerable, claimed yet free. It had been so long—so damn long—since she'd felt that from him. And longer since she could return that feeling and give herself to him completely.

Finally, it was just the two of them.

x x x x

Laura and Bill had spent a lazy day together. She accepted it without question when he took a few extra days of shore leave, enjoying it as much as she could.

There were times when she wondered what things were so important up on _Galactica_ that he couldn't make more time for her, but then, as usual, she passed off those thoughts.

 _Be happy with what you have. It's more than what you had before._

The hour grew late and Laura was immersed in reviewing schoolwork. Her job, though usually thankless, provided her with a means to keep making a positive impact on the lives of others.

This was just on a less stressful level.

 _Most of the time._

Bill had gone out with Saul to have a "strategic meeting" hours before, and she was growing weary of reading papers. She stood up and stretched, then pulled on her sweater and tugged on her boots.

She knew exactly where to find them.

Laura walked the now-navigable maze between the tents to the makeshift bar in the middle of the camp. A strategic meeting with Saul couldn't involve a lot of strategy, because frankly, what was there to strategize about anymore? It did, however, involve a fair amount of drinking and carousing.

She heard Saul's raucous laughter as she approached the bar. The two men were sitting alongside each other, glasses of New Caprican moonshine in their hands.

She was surprised to see Ellen there as well, lounging with her arm across the bar like she owned the place. Laura surmised the Tighs probably did own a chunk of the place, singlehandedly responsible for a large percentage of the moonshine sales.

 _Community investment. How benevolent of them._

Laura wrapped her arms around her waist, still chilly despite her layers of clothes.

"How's the strategic meeting going?" she asked, walking up behind Bill.

Bill seemed surprised to see her, though not embarrassed to be at the bar.

"Plenty of strategizin' going on tonight!" Saul proclaimed, tilting his glass and tapping it on the bar. "Like how to get ol' Joe here to notice I've been on bingo fuel for half a frakkin' hour."

"Hey," Bill said, sliding his arm around her hips.

She tensed up at first—she wasn't used to publicly displaying their affection, and now on the rare occasions that they let it happen, it still felt inappropriate, even though she knew better. She took a deep breath and relaxed into his arm at the sight of his toothy grin. "We were strategizing," he insisted, a gleam in his eye.

Laura raised her eyebrows and nodded with a smirk.

"They were, I heard them," Ellen piped up from beside Saul. "But they always strategize better with a little alcohol in them. Always have."

Laura looked at Ellen, who was resting her head in her palm. She hummed, then looked back at Bill. It seemed Ellen was also an integral part of the strategic meeting, though she wasn't sure how she fit into the picture.

"How's the grading going?" Bill asked.

"You really haven't lived until you've read twenty-six fifth grade essays on ‘My Favorite God.'"

Bill chuckled and gave her a squeeze through her thick wool sweater. "So who's the overall favorite?"

"Mars. Big surprise, huh?" She tapped her fingers atop the bar, attracting Joe's attention. Joe quickly dropped a tall glass of moonshine in front of her—there was no need to place an order, they only had one type of swill on New Caprica now—much to Saul's irritation as he pushed his still-empty cup away.

"Makes me proud." Bill finished off the rest of his drink.

She examined his profile and wondered what god William Adama would have written about when he was young, a little more idealistic, a lot less war-worn.

"So Saul," Bill said as he stealthily slid his hand under the edge of Laura's sweater. She chuckled as he lightly cupped her ass.

 _Fine. A little groping won't hurt._

"Yes, sir," Saul barked, a little too cheerfully.

"Do you think the ex-President has a nice ass?" he asked. Laura's lips parted in surprise and she smacked him on the arm hard enough to make him wince.

"You really want me checking out your woman's ass, old man?" Saul said, tilting back a bit to try and see around Bill. "I ain't gotta problem with that, but she might."

Laura rolled her eyes. "I should sit down before you land yourself in more trouble."

Bill chuckled, his palm still pressing into her. "You could have a seat, but the only free chair is over there." Bill nodded in Ellen's direction. "Unless, of course," he added, pulling her closer and nearly into his lap, "you want to sit here."

Laura laughed as she steadied her footing. She ran her fingers over his hand. "Oh, that's all right," she teased, even though she wasn't sure it was fine at all to have to sit next to Ellen. She grabbed her drink. "Would hate to interrupt your _strategizin'_."

With that, she pried his fingers off her hip and heard him groan as she walked away.

 _Oh, come on, Bill. You should be used to my teasing by now._

Laura walked over to the seat next to Ellen, who stopped kissing Saul's ear as Laura got comfortable. She took the first sip of her drink and nearly gagged at the pungent fumes that immediately cleared her sinuses.

Ellen turned to Laura with a broad smile. "So, how's it feel to be a military wife?" she asked, taking a sip of her drink.

Laura stared at her for an extended moment.

"I don't think I need to tell you that I'm not anybody's wife."

Ellen leaned closer. "You know what I mean."

Laura took a deep breath through her nose. It never took long for Ellen to get on her nerves. She knew there had to be some other side to this woman, some redeeming qualities, for Saul to love her as much as he did, for Bill to tolerate her so often. It just had yet to be seen.

"Cut the crap, Ellen," Laura said, taking another drink of her caustic beverage.

"Fine." Ellen put her weight on both elbows on the bar, keeping her eyes on Laura. "I'll tell you what. I was so happy when Bill kicked Saul off _Galactica_ and down here with me." Ellen took another drink, seemingly savoring the taste. Laura took another drink and didn't savor it nearly as much. "I was tired of being second to his career."

Laura glanced at Bill and Saul, who were engrossed in conversation.

She knew exactly what Ellen was saying—she'd experienced it in the past, especially with Richard. But this wasn't the time to broach that subject, and definitely not with someone who ran at the mouth like Ellen Tigh did.

"I felt like the other woman to Bill all the time," Ellen said, arching her eyebrow and glancing over at her.

It seemed like Ellen's eyes always sparkled when she knew she had struck a nerve. Laura tried to hide that Ellen's confession had unsettled her, but the warm buzz of the alcohol beginning to pump through her bloodstream made it difficult to hide. "How, exactly?" she asked.

"Those two are like peas in a pod." Ellen shrugged in their direction. "It's all Fleet this, tyllium that, now it's Cylons this and that. I don't think I heard Saul talk about anything but 'frakkin' Cylons' for months when we actually had private time together, which wasn't often enough anyway. Until we came down here."

Laura hummed and took a longer drink. "Isn't that part of the job?" Laura asked. "Didn't you know that going in?"

Laura certainly knew it. She knew better than to expect Bill's undivided attention at most times. There were rare moments in which they were completely attuned to each other—the same moments in which they let themselves go, forgot about who they were and the responsibilities he held, the ones she used to hold—but most other times she could see it in his eyes. Always thinking, always scheming to make things work, to make life better for the Fleet.

She used to be the same way before she lost the election. Now she focused on what she could still control—her work at the school, a few friendships she'd built since being down on the planet. She could make decisions now and nobody's fate hung in the balance but her own.

"You think you know, going in," Ellen said, sighing. "But you also hope that it might change. It never does. Trust me, I've seen it in my marriage, I saw it with Bill and Carolanne—"

"That's none of my business."

Bill rarely talked about his first marriage—nor did she talk about her relationship with Richard—and she felt like if he ever did, then that would be the time for her to know more details. She was a little curious, but at the same time, didn't want to take Ellen's perspective to heart.

Ellen looked at her, a smile playing across her lips. "All of it's your business, Laura. It became your business the minute you two started frakking like teenagers."

 _Oh, gods._

Laura sucked down the rest of her drink, a hard swallow punctuated with a cough.

"You need to know what you're getting into," Ellen finished.

Feigning a reassuring smile, Laura tapped her empty glass on the bar. "It's been nice talking to you. I need to go grade more essays."

"Just think about it," Ellen said.

"I do," Laura said softly. "I have."

She stood up and pulled her arms behind her back in a stretch as she walked up beside Bill. Her body was heated, the alcohol having taken quick effect. "Hey," she said, putting her hand on his shoulder.

He turned to her and kissed the top of her hand, his lips soft. "You survive the conversation with Ellen?"

She gave him a smile and lowered her head. "I did. Did you strategize?"

"Oh, maybe." Bill kissed her fingers one at a time. "Not sure I want to say what kind of strategizing we were doing."

"Hmm," she teased, his kisses sending a tingle up her arm. "That sounds classified to me."

"I might tell you later on tonight," he said, his voice low. She knew that tone well. It sent a muted flutter of warmth through her abdomen.

"I'm headed back to my tent. More grading to do." She squeezed his shoulder.

"You grading papers liquored up again?"

Laura chuckled. "Maybe it'll numb the pain."

She leaned down to kiss his cheek. His fingers drifted into her hair and he looked into her eyes, his gaze playful. She pressed her mouth onto his ear.

"I'd better see you soon," she murmured. "I need to be briefed on your strategic plans."

"Debriefed, maybe," he said. He copped another feel of her ass and she backed up, giving him a teasing glare.

"Papers," she said firmly.

Back in her tent, she'd barely picked up the next essay to be graded before he was there, kissing her, his hands roaming her body.

The schoolchildren could wait one more day for their grades.  



	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes we make mistakes when we think we're doing the right thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See Chapter One, thank you to my frakking awesome betas.

The softest scent of wood smoke in the darkened tent greeted Laura as she slowly roused to consciousness. She felt a strong arm wrapped around her waist and realized she wasn't alone.

These were the mornings she awoke with a smile.

She rolled onto her back, her legs achy from being entwined with Bill's. She jostled him only slightly, but he sensed her movement and covered her body halfway with his, his nose resting in the crook of her shoulder. His mustache tickled her skin. She sighed contentedly at his comfortable, heavy weight and at the warmth shared between them as he snuggled closer.

"Morning," she said, keeping her eyes closed.

"Mmmh."

Bill was never much of a talker first thing in the morning. She ran her fingers through the back of his hair and over his broad shoulders. He let out a soft sigh, a sound that had surprised her the first time she'd heard it.

 _Such a gentle sound coming from such a big, tough guy._

It was nice to wake up to him with his guard down.

"Gods, you feel good." His voice rumbled against her neck. "Stay here with me."

"All day?" She laughed, stroking his shoulder.

"Mhmm." He kissed her ear.

"I've got school this morning."

 _Damn it._

"Cancel it." His fingers trailed along her skin and her body shivered at the sensation. "Make up a holiday."

"Miss Roslin Got Frakked Too Hard Last Night Day?"

He chuckled and put his hand on her cheek, turning her face for a kiss. It was a lazy morning kind of kiss, the kind people shared when all they had was time on their hands.

"Did she get frakked too hard last night?" he murmured against her mouth.

"Mmmm," she hummed, nuzzling her nose against his. "'Too hard' makes it sound like it was a bad thing."

"It wasn't a bad thing," he said, nibbling on her bottom lip. "It was a very good thing, Miss Roslin."

She smirked and looked into his eyes, indulging herself in his playful expression. She didn't see it often enough. She grinned and kissed him, twice, three times. "Speaking of good things…and bad things…I had an interesting conversation with Ellen last night at the bar."

"I'm sure you did."

 _Oh, did we ever._

"Saul must really love her, huh?" She closed her eyes, pointing her toes toward the end of the cot to stretch out her cramped muscles.

"Mmm. He does. Why do you ask?"

"I guess I just don't get it. She seems like such a train wreck."

She felt him prop his chin on her shoulder. "You've certainly developed a strong opinion of Mrs. Tigh."

"Well, she's good at giving impressions."

"She's complicated."

 _Complicated's one word for it._

"Hmmm. Do you think she's bad for him?"

"Saul? Nah. I mean…" He paused, as if searching for the right words. "They're in love. They've been together forever. I don't think she's completely bad for him. But nobody in any relationship is perfect."

"Didn't Ellen cheat on him with half the Fleet stationed on Picon while he was away?"

"It's easy for the rumor mill to churn when a guy's away from home for so long." His tone softened and she traced the side of his neck with her fingertips.

"Do you think they were just rumors?"

"Don't know, I wasn't there." He kissed her shoulder, leaving his lips on her skin. "Besides, it's not up to me to judge her. That's up to Saul. We all have our flaws."

"Oh, really." Laura opened her eyes and arched an eyebrow. "What're mine?"

Bill laughed and buried his face in her neck. "I fell right into that one, didn't I?"

"You bet you did."

"Can I take it back?"

"Nope. Your theory's out, flyboy. Now you need to back it up."

He sighed, his breath warm across her skin. His hand moved to her breast and cupped it, kneading gently. A soft moan escaped her, barely a breath. "I guess…you distance yourself," he said.

She felt a twinge of defensiveness. "Sometimes I have. But not now. Not with you anymore."

"Mmm. No. Not nearly as much as you used to."

She stared up at the ceiling of her tent, feeling his chest rise and fall. "You distance yourself, too."

 _We're so much alike, more than I ever thought we would be._

"I never said that I didn't."

She sighed and kissed his forehead, an uneasiness settling into her. "No, I'm just saying that you do. You got to point out one of my flaws. It was my turn."

His hand slid off her breast and back to her side, tucking under her body. "I guess we both do," he said. He sounded uncertain.

 _Maybe he doesn't like someone telling him it's noticeable._

"But," Laura said with a pause, "at least we're not drunks, and at least I don't sleep around on you all the time."

Bill pulled away and she felt a blush spread across her cheeks, suddenly embarrassed at her lack of tact. He turned over and sat on the side of the cot, then stood up. She watched him as he picked up his boxers and tugged them on.

"I don't know what your hang up is, but Saul and Ellen are my friends. They've been there for me through a lot of things," he said, pulling his tanks over his head.

Laura sat up in the cot and pulled the blankets around her chest. "I'm sorry. I just don't quite get her."

He glanced at her briefly as he snagged his trousers from the end of the cot. "No. You don't."

She felt her stomach churn. "Bill."

"I just need a chance to cool my head," he interrupted, zipping up. He picked up his coat and shrugged it over his shoulders. "I don't want to get into an argument with you over the Tighs, Laura."

"I'm not trying to argue."

He walked over to her and leaned down to give her a soft, lingering kiss. He looked into her eyes. "Ellen isn't who you think she is. I'm sure that if she judged you by first impressions, her idea of who you are would be pretty off too."

Laura felt her jaw tighten as she gave him a curt nod, holding back any further commentary.

"I'll be back," he said, running his thumb over her lips. "I'll see if I can find us something warm to eat."

"Okay," she said, kissing his thumb with a halfhearted smile.

She watched him walk out of the tent and close the flaps behind him. She fell back onto the bed with a deep sigh, tears stinging her eyes.

 _Frak._

She didn't know why she cared so much about who Ellen really was, or what she said or even what she did. But for some reason, she did care, to the point of feeling anxious. Maybe it was what Ellen had said at the bar and the knowledge of Bill she seemed to have, whereas Laura felt like she had only begun to scratch the surface.

She didn't want to have to depend on Ellen to get inside of Bill's head.

x x x x

It was the same cycle of conjugal visits and departures. Every time Bill left felt the same as the last—though Laura knew he had to go back and command the Fleet, she wished things could finally be different.

She walked him to his Raptor, their fingers twined together. They never walked slowly enough.

He turned to her, the sunlight showing off the olive tone of his skin. She loved looking at him in the daylight, even loved the way the wind ruffled through his hair.

"You could come back with me," he said, squeezing her hand.

She reached out and brushed her thumb over his lips. He kissed it and smiled at her, that smile that made her melt a little inside every time she saw it.

"You know I'd go crazy up there," she said. "Nothin' to do, nothin' but time. They need me down here. The school needs me. The people need to see me, out, alive and well, just like everybody else."

"I know."

She could hear the hint of regret in his voice, as much as he tried to hide it.

They were silent for a moment, looking into each other's eyes. Laura took a deep breath and stepped closer to him to plant a kiss along his jaw line.

"So, how long this time?" she asked.

"Probably three weeks."

"Oh, Bill, you're killing me," she groaned. He slid his arms around her waist and pulled her against him. She slipped arms around his neck. "Three weeks? Not a single day off?"

He chuckled and buried his face in her hair. She felt him breathe in. "I could probably manage to sneak away some night sooner than that."

"You'd better," she said with a sigh. "I don't want to wait that long."

"You've waited longer."

She hummed and tugged on his hair. He nuzzled her neck, then met her eyes.

"We don't have to wait anymore." Her glare was teasing. "No more waiting."

He smiled and kissed her nose.

She hugged him tightly and held onto him as long as he would let her.

x x x x

 **_Two weeks later_ **

It was a normal day—New Caprica gray is what they called the sky, something the turn of the seasons seemed to bring on along with the bone-chilling cold. Laura boiled a kettle of water so she could drink tea while she watched children gather in the schoolyard. The steam felt good on her face, the scent of the wild herbs she'd gathered calming her. It was reminiscent of late autumn mornings on Caprica, those days right before the first snow when hats and gloves started making their appearances on the playground. She was overcome by a sense of nostalgia she hadn't felt in ages.

She closed her eyes and listened to the rising sounds of youthful laughter and singsong melodies.

 _This could be home._

The morning went as it always did. Maya taught math; Laura was never good at figures and was happy to have the help of an assistant who took geometry less than three decades before. Laura taught language after lunch, watching closely as students dabbed their finely sharpened sticks—they nearly looked like pencils—into ink refined from tree bark.

For as little of humanity that was left, they certainly were resourceful people.

Parents had just arrived to take their children home when Laura first heard the screech overhead, a sound that seared her ears. Listening more closely, she heard it again, along with an accompanying rattle of pencils on tables.

Another screech and the vibration settled into her bones; she felt as if her stomach had dropped. Her gut swirled sickly as she moved to the entrance of the tent, took a deep breath and looked up toward the sky.

Laura stood still when she saw the Raiders, heavy metal streaks across New Caprica gray.

The calm that remained within her left her emotionless on the outside with a slow-burning anger stirring on the inside. Those were Cylon ships gliding overhead. They’d been discovered. This was an attack.

 _Shouldn’t I be afraid?_

She searched the sky for any Fleet presence, but saw none. She looked around her and saw her fellow citizens, faces of humanity upturned to the sky in wonder until the reality of things set in.

Their screams sounded distant but grew louder as she lowered her eyes. With the low swoop of a heavy Raider overhead, Laura was snapped back to the reality unfolding around her and suddenly, every sound was deafening. Screeching. Screaming. She watched the people on the ground run, stumbling over each other, frantic to reach the false protection of their tents.

 _This must have been what Caprica sounded like…_

It had to have been a surprise assault. There were no Vipers pursuing these ships in retaliation, no Fleet forces saving the day. She was helpless, useless, idly standing by on the ground.

 _I hope you're fighting up there._

She expected to hear bombs, but she didn't as time passed. The silence was harrowing in the minutes after the Raiders landed, before the first Centurions began their march into the camp, step by mechanized step.

The parade was luridly captivating.

x x x x

Ellen clung to Saul when the Centurions began walking among them.

The whole thing was like a nightmare from which she couldn't wake up. She held back her tears, unsure if they were being drawn from anger or fear. Saul was notably silent. She wasn't sure she wanted to know what was going on inside his head.

 _Where the frak are you, Bill?_

She didn't dare say it aloud.

She felt Saul pull her closer and realized, as she pressed herself into his side, that he was trembling. That frightened her more than the sight before her eyes.

"Lords of Kobol," Saul finally breathed. He sounded nearly in awe.

"It's okay, Saul," she said, slipping her arm around his waist. She kissed his shoulder and pressed her cheek into it. "It's okay."

He glanced down at her, then back to the processional of machines.

"We can't lie to ourselves anymore."

x x x x

"Where's the Admiral, Chief? Have you heard from him?"

Laura had followed Chief inside his tent and immediately started barking her questions. Chief had been hard to track down in the hours since the Cylons had landed and begun their immediate occupation of the city. She finally gave up stalking his usual haunts and waited for him where she knew he'd eventually return.

Chief looked exhausted, his eyes weary and hair incurably tousled. He rubbed his hand across his eyes, then looked at Laura.

"First thing we did was secure the ground ops center. We've got it under watch," he said. "Luckily the Colonel's a paranoid old frak so we'd already planned for the big 'what if.' We've got all the equipment we need to communicate with the Fleet underground."

Laura nodded, her heart racing. "Did you check the wireless for a message from _Galactica_?"

"Took a quick look," he said. He looked down and shifted uncomfortably on his feet.

"Galen," she said, "tell me what it said."

 _Please, please, I don't want to hear that..._

"Last communication we got… _Galactica_ jumped," Chief answered, not looking up. " _Pegasus_ jumped."

"Oh my gods."

 _Oh my gods, he's gone, and the last time I saw him—_

"Unknown coordinates, obviously." Chief interrupted her thoughts and she tried to steady herself. "Wireless transmission said five Baseships jumped into orbit, all at once, and it was a complete clusterfrak up there. They'd have had no chance if they stayed in orbit. They'd have been blown to pieces five times over if they didn't haul ass outta there."

"We're defenseless," she said, her stomach churning.

 _Bill, where the frak did you go?_

"No, we're not," Chief answered sharply. "They're out there somewhere. They didn't abandon us, Ma'am." He paused. "I think you know the Admiral a little better than that."

It hit her like a punch to the gut.

She'd thought she knew a lot of things that were quickly proving to be false. It had been foolish of her to feel safe, to feel like they'd finally found a home.

 _So foolish._

"I do," she said. She blushed as a tear slid down her heated cheek. She brushed it away. "He's coming back, I'm sure of it, once they come up with a plan."

She thought of what must be going through Bill's mind—the worry, the guilt over jumping away. His concern for the people, his desperation to always prevail in this seemingly eternal battle.

 _He won't lose the war, not in a million years._

"We've got a plan," Chief said. "Everything's gonna be fine. We just need to regroup."

Laura forced a smile. "Thought of everything, didn't you? All those times I thought Bill and Saul were getting drunk, maybe they were actually strategizing after all."

There was a quiet moment between them. She watched Chief and suddenly became anxious about his safety, about everyone's safety.

"You don't think that they'll come looking for us…" She faltered. She had to stop there. She didn't want to think about any possible reasons why they would want Saul, maybe even Chief, maybe even her.

 _Get your head on straight, Laura._

"We don't need to hide," she said. "We don't need to panic. We need to show them we were first on this planet. We just need to tread carefully. Keep our friends close, our enemies closer."

"Damn straight. You never know who'll side with them and give 'em whatever info they want to frak us over."

She nodded, scraping her teeth over her lower lip.

"Don't worry," Chief said. "Keep the school open tomorrow. Those kids are gonna need that from you. Colonel Tigh, Sam and I will take care of the stuff behind the scenes."

Laura thought about Cally, amid all of this upheaval and Chief running around, trying to save the world. She had to be nearly due. "Take care of yourself first."

x x x x

Days were long without Saul. They'd been long when he was on _Galactica_ , most likely watching dust collect on the information table in the CIC. But now that he was out with Sam and Galen, wherever doing whatever, the days were intolerably longer.

Every time Ellen ran out of ways to distract herself she'd wonder whether he was going to make it home. She would go to the market to pick up some meager offerings for the dinner she didn't know if he was going to be around to eat. She would go to the bar to drink and tense up when she heard a mechanized drone pass behind her back. She would sit inside their tent at the table and wait for him as the evening grew later, her silent moments punctuated with panic and anxiety that she couldn't shake.

The Cylons—not those hard-wired, simple-minded tin cans that patrolled the streets, but the smart ones that looked human, the "skinjobs," as Saul called them—had to know the identities of the Fleet's most valuable assets. Sam. Chief. Laura. Saul. Maybe even her.

Those smart ones probably knew exactly where they were at all times, keeping tabs on their movement, watching for anything awry. They were too intelligent not to suspect that there was an entire resistance movement in place nearly the instant their Raiders touched the ground.

There were times she was proud of Saul. Times when his courage and his will and his strength inspired her and made her love him more.

It was a double-edged sword, being married to a man like that. She could feel it slowly twisting in her gut, the inconsolable uneasiness that his absence caused.

Every night he came home she held him tighter. Every morning he left, she missed him more.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes we make mistakes when we think we're doing the right thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See Chapter One, thank you to my frakking awesome betas.

_  
**A month later**   
_

It had taken Laura a long time after she set foot on New Caprica to get used to not living under lock and key. There were no Marines stationed outside her door. Tents had flaps, not hatches, and some nights she'd lie awake waiting for someone to enter. She laughably kept a large stick right under her cot, one she'd found in the hills on a hike one day, just in case an intruder invaded her makeshift sanctuary.

It was lonely in this cot in the middle of "tent city." She'd thought she was lonely up on _Colonial One_ with nothing to look at but the stars surrounding them, but stars were beginning to seem more appealing than canvas walls. She would bury herself under several Fleet-issue blankets—more layers, more protection—and breathe in the chilled night air, staring off into the darkness of the cramped space she tried to call her home.

At times when sleep was hard to come by, she'd imagine Bill walking into her tent. How surprising that would be. She knew better—he couldn't just drop by like it was a casual afternoon visit, on some sort of day pass from _Galactica_ to visit her for a few hours. Not anymore.

But sometimes she let herself think about it.

She shifted onto her back in the cot and sighed, closing her eyes. Her fingers played along the waistband of her pants, the softest of touches. She always slept fully clothed when she was alone. She felt safer that way, and more importantly, it kept her warm on the nights she could see her breath's fog in the air.

Before the occupation, she and Bill would always find themselves back in her tent, no matter where they started out. They both knew why they'd ended up there together. She tried to overcome the feeling that it was forbidden—she was no longer President, just a civvie, he’d tell her when he teased her about her formality. But there was still an air of restraint in the way they conducted themselves in public. It felt right that way.

Inside her tent, though, that was different. As soon as the tent flaps closed, their mouths would meet in a frantic kiss. His large, soft hands would glide up the inside of her sweater as his mouth covered hers and gods, that first, beautiful moment in which they let their guard down was always the sweetest relief.

In her cot alone, she slipped her hand into her pants and cupped herself, biting her lip as she thought about the suck of his mouth on her neck, the rub of his thumbs over her nipples, his hardness against her thigh. He would growl in her ear that he'd been waiting for weeks just to touch her body all night long.

She felt a warm flush across her chest merely thinking about the vibration of his voice on her skin.

Undressing him was a guilty pleasure, plucking at the buttons, pulling at his tanks until he was exposed to her. She would run her hands along the muscled curves of his chest and arms until she heard the softest of moans from his throat. Then she would undo his pants and press her palm along his cock, hot and hard through the fabric, and he would hold close and kiss her, his hand tangled in her hair.

She'd pull him down on the cot it would be his fingers, no, his tongue, gliding through her wetness. The slow, methodical rhythm he always started with would make her moan into the darkness until, quickly, he shed all inhibitions and began lapping at her roughly, his hands clutching at her hips.

He felt so good, from his tongue to the brush of his mustache across her skin to his thick fingers gliding into her, two at first until she begged him for more, harder, faster.

She slid two fingers inside herself, her palm grinding her most sensitive spot, no substitute for the touch of his mouth. She panted, her hips responding instinctively to the movement of her hand.

She wanted to pull him close with her heels, lock her legs around his neck, make him lick her until she came, writhing, her back twisted and a strangled cry trapped behind her bitten lips.

Returning the favor, she'd rise on all fours and eye the expanse of his body as he lay upon her cot. Sliding his length into her mouth just to hear that low groan of his sent a sizzle up her spine. She would suck him deep, watching his expression, hearing his encouragements and touching herself at the same time. Sometimes she'd come again that way, whimpering around his cock in her mouth, her fingers swirling herself into ecstasy.

Laura's fingers switched position, circling more quickly, ready for some sort of resolution. It felt good, so good, and the thoughts running through her head made her body twinge in anticipation.

 _It's been so long since I let myself feel this…_

She'd climb over his body, straddle him, grab his cock firmly and take him inside her—a moan escaped her, alone on her cot, as she thought of his thickness filling her completely. His hands would grip her ass, the sound and sensation of their bodies meeting over and over making her shiver.

Laura felt the cold night air against her face as she pressed harder, so close to the elusive peak she was desperately seeking. She shuddered as her fingers slid across her clit, circling faster, her flesh warm and soft to her touch.

 _Come on, come on, come on…_

He'd come buried inside her and she'd arch her back and growl his name through her teeth, trying to stay quiet, so happy to be with him, so completely sated.

 _But he isn't here._

She cried out in frustration, louder than she expected, and clamped her mouth shut. Her breathing was ragged as she pulled her hand from between her legs. The strain of trying to hold back her tears ached in her throat and eyes.

 _We may have given them an earful,_ he once told her afterward as they lay spent across each other.

All she wanted was to cry without being heard.

All she wanted was to feel something good.

She bit her lip, her chest shaking, until the taste of iron tainted her tongue. She steadied her breathing and stared at the ceiling.

x x x x

It was a bright, sunny day when Saul went to the pyramid game and never came home.

It grew darker, a blood-red sunset on the horizon, and Ellen started to panic. He knew better than to leave her alone for this long, to worry her like this.

She hoped he'd passed out drinking. But she was certain, if that were the case, that somebody would have hauled his stumbling ass home.

She waited and nobody came.

Night settled upon the camp. She sat at the simple wooden table inside their tent. Saul had built it, as rickety as it was, and she fondly recalled how he was so proud to present it to her that day. It was all she could do to keep herself from frakking him right there on it, but she was afraid it'd break.

She traced the grain of the surface with her chipped fingernails, nervously tapping her feet.

The wail of the siren startled her, sending her stomach sinking. He had to come home now, or he'd be arrested, or worse, for violating curfew.

She waited, tracing the grain, over and over, grooves smooth under her fingers.

She peered out of the tent when the moons were high in the sky. She rubbed her eyes, exhausted, and closed the flaps, tying them firmly together.

She began to pace, cursing under her breath. When that didn't miraculously produce her husband, she started grabbing everything she could find and throwing it at the ground. Cups, his comb, his clothes, their books, angrier with every throw.

"Frakker," she growled. "You stupid, stupid frakker."

It was easier to get angry than to be afraid. She'd learned this long ago. She tossed his extra pair of boots out of the tent, crossed her arms over her chest, and took a deep breath.

She convinced herself he was coming home. When he did, she would scream at him, hit his chest, and then kiss him as hard as she could. She could hear his chuckle already.

 _Easier to be angry._

She settled into their cot with a deep sigh. She lay awake, the smell of him on the sheets, and pulled his pillow tightly to her chest.

x x x x

Ellen woke up with a start to a loud clatter outside their tent. She was shivering, the night air having left her skin clammy and damp. There was a chill about this place that settled into her bones every morning no matter how many blankets she used.

He hadn't come home.

She pulled on her boots and her coat and exited the tent, nearly tripping over Saul's discarded boots. Picking them up with more care than she wanted to admit, she set them just inside the tent flap and tied it closed.

Then she made her way to Galen's tent—they were drinking buddies and often went to the games together and got sloshed.

"Galen," she called hesitantly from outside the tent. There was no way to knock, and she hated that she had to announce her arrival like that. It seemed so impolite.

There was a grumbling inside the tent. "Yeah?"

"Don't you ever get a frakkin' break?" She heard Cally hiss.

"It's Ellen," Ellen said, her nerves bundled in her stomach. "Listen…I'm looking for Saul."

She heard a rustling inside the tent and backed away. Galen nudged open the tent flaps and she saw he was clad in his underclothes. She felt awful for interrupting them so early in the morning, Galen and his little family. "I'm sorry, it's just…did you go to the game with Saul yesterday afternoon?"

"He was there," Galen said, squinting his eyes slightly at the rising sun. "He left early, said something about wanting to get home because the game was frakkin' pathetic."

Ellen felt her chest tighten. "He didn't come home, Galen."

Galen stared at her, then cocked his head. "He never made it home?"

Ellen blinked away the threat of tears. "No, he didn't. He left for that game and he hasn't been home since."

She could see the hint of fear developing on Galen's face—he was never one who was able to contain his emotions. She'd heard it from Saul all the time, even saw it in Galen herself sometimes at the games or at the union rallies.

Galen was afraid, though the realization seemed to be hitting him slowly. His brow furrowed.

"Maybe he passed out somewhere. Ellen, your old man's a drunk—"

"Tell me something I don't know," she spat back. "But it's been what, eighteen hours since the game? I highly doubt Saul's been lying in a ditch that long."

Galen took a deep breath and Ellen looked down at her feet. "Damn it. I'm sorry, Galen. I'm just worried sick. You know why."

 _Because I can't live without him._

The thought jarred her.

"Yeah," he said. He ran his hand through his hair. "I know why."

Galen looked back into the tent, then into Ellen's eyes. She felt a mixture of guilt and satisfaction and smiled thankfully at him.

"Listen I'll…I'll get a few guys together and we'll go out looking for him. If that frakkin' husband of yours is passed out with a bottle in hand somewhere, we'll give you the first kick of his ass."

She laughed, pulling her hair behind her ear. "Okay."

x x x x

People had set up farms almost immediately upon colonization, as if rooting plants in the ground would root their bodies and spirits just as easily. Everybody was so desperate for something real to eat. The land wasn't the best, and what plants grew weren't very productive. But Laura remembered the first fresh tomato she'd eaten in a year. Its skin slick on her teeth, it had burst in her mouth and she'd remembered, for an instant, what life, real life, was like.

The market was the most public place on New Caprica. It had been the place all Colonists frequented at least once per day to get food and supplies. After the occupation, the market was still crowded, but bustling with humans and Cylons alike. Laura knew this made it the prime target for both Cylon patrols and resistance activity—if arrests were made, or alternately, if Cylons were attacked, all of these things would be done in the presence of civilians in the most public arena possible, to either instill fear or hope into the populace.

Her heartbeat had always raced when she went there, nightmarish possibilities running through her head. She heard the stories, knew some of them were true—increasingly, people "of interest" were plucked up like apples from a basket, then tossed into a cell to rot, if they were lucky.

Laura had started to avoid the market entirely after Saul disappeared, only venturing out of her tent to teach at the school. She had Tory or Maya pick up her necessities—they'd volunteered. She'd never have asked them to do it for her. It was a miserable existence, this self-imposed exile from society, but she'd convinced herself it was better not to tempt fate.

She was journaling when she heard a rustling outside of her tent and felt her stomach sink.

"Hello?" she called tentatively.

 _Don't let this be it. Please, don't let this be it._

"Laura?"

It was Ellen's voice. Laura let all of her breath out at once.

"My gods, you scared the frak out of me," she said, standing up. "Come in."

Ellen entered the tent and paused just inside, flashing Laura an apologetic smile. "I just thought I'd check in on you. Must be terribly lonely spending all your time by yourself. When you're not at the school, that is."

It was lonely, but she wasn't about to tell Ellen that.

"Any news on Saul?" Laura asked.

Ellen's reaction was immediate, her face falling slightly. Laura bit the inside of her lip and berated herself for being so glib about his disappearance.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have mentioned it."

"Why? It's nice that you care."

Laura tilted her head at Ellen's biting tone. "I do. Saul is Bill's best friend, Ellen, and your husband, and of course I'm concerned about his welfare."

Ellen kept her gaze. "Any word from Bill?"

The words stung her. _Touché, Ellen._

"No," Laura said after a moment to collect herself. "No word from Bill." Laura adjusted her sweater and rolled her shoulders back. "I'm sure they're busy implementing an evacuation plan."

Ellen raised an eyebrow. "I'm sure."

She didn't sound so sure. Laura took a deep breath to try and relieve some of the tension she felt building. She beckoned to her table and chairs. "Have a seat. I can run and get us some water, see if I have something to put into it somewhere around here." She smiled, embarrassed by her inability to host a guest. "It won't be much, but it'll be something."

"Oh, it's all right," Ellen said absently. "I was just checking on you. And Bill."

Laura hummed, nodding. They stood in front of each other for an awkward moment, during which Laura wished she could read minds.

"It's best Bill jumped," Laura said.

 _Where did that come from?_

Ellen's look was questioning. "Why do you say that?"

Laura faltered for a moment. "I…I don't know, I've been trying to convince myself of it. And I don't want people thinking he abandoned anyone." She picked up her pen and tapped her journal, her nerves fraying. "He didn't abandon anybody."

Laura didn't know why she said it—she hadn't voiced her opinion to anyone else before, hadn't even really weighed these statements in her own mind. For some reason, she felt the need to justify his actions to Ellen. But Ellen's face, as her eyes narrowed and her lips pursed, led her to believe she'd erred.

"I just wonder who's really looking after all of us down here," Ellen said with a shrug. "The Fleet jumped away and well, come on, Laura. They left us here to die."

 _What the—_

Laura felt a surge of anger. "No. You know Bill better than that, Ellen."

"Well, who's looking after us, then? Saul used to, but he certainly isn't able to do that anymore. At least, not right now."

"Oh, please," Laura said, growing more irritated. "You can't blame Bill's split-second military decisions for Saul's disappearance."

"I can pretty much blame anything I want to, since I don't even know what the frak happened," Ellen said, her voice rising in pitch. "Because the honest truth is, if the Cylons did take Saul, they should've taken Bill instead, Laura. It should be Bill in that detention center, not Saul."

"Ellen." Laura immediately felt sick to her stomach.

"Think about it."

 _She's angry, with nobody to blame, so she's acting out on those she can trust._

"I've thought about it a lot. The entire thing. I don't have any answers for you. What's done is done."

"Isn't that the truth," Ellen snapped back, her jaw set. "No point in even thinking about it, really. Maybe Bill's alive, maybe he's dead. Maybe Saul's alive, maybe he's dead too. What's done is done."

Laura watched Ellen as she turned and started out of the tent. She hesitated with her hand on the flap. "We'll all die here, you know."

"Get out."

Ellen looked back at her. Laura crossed her arms, her eyes brimming with tears.

"Get _out_."

She watched Ellen leave and bit her quivering lip.

 _Nobody is dead. Everyone's alive, and he's coming back, godsdamn it._


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes we make mistakes when we think we're doing the right thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See Chapter One, thank you to my frakking awesome betas. I owe you all drinks.

Ellen left the schoolhouse tent in a fury. She hadn't meant to walk in on Laura and berate her about Bill's lack of responsibility for the Fleet, but it had spilled out of her, tinged with the frustration over not knowing where the frak Saul was, if he was alive at all.

She'd seen Laura's tears and felt a pang of guilt. Laura was missing Bill, just like she was missing Saul. She had to be hurting. They both were, especially now.

Ellen walked toward her tent, then paused at the beginning of the long path that ran through the middle of the city. Every "road" in this city consisted entirely of dirt, which usually meant it consisted entirely of mud.

She looked to the detention center, a solid cement building in the distance. Even from afar it was intimidating, maybe because it was the only building in New Caprica City that was actually ever _built_.

She'd never felt more alone as she turned and began to tread the path, muck sticking to her boots.

Ellen held her breath as she approached the detention center gate. She hated Centurions, always had. When she was young she would watch them march around, that dull, artificial red blip of light shifting back and forth across their so-called faces.

She hated the way they sounded, the way they looked, the way they moved.

There were two that guarded the detention center constantly. She walked right up to them, her heartbeat racing, and looked upward. They towered over her and she took a steady breath, holding it in her chest until it burned.

She let it all out in one big rush of air. "Hi." She smiled at them.

 _Like it matters._

"I believe my husband, Saul Tigh, is detained here, and I'm sure that it was a mistake and that there are no reasons whatsoever for him to be in there. I'd like to see about getting him out. Who do I need to talk to?"

She knew they couldn't talk back, but at least an acknowledgement of her request would have done nicely. They stood motionless, except for those godsdamned red blips. Side, to side, to side. It was the most unsettling part of them, that constant motion that meant some part of them, deep inside, was alive.

"I'm not leaving," she said, tossing her hair over her shoulder. "I'm not leaving until I get to talk to someone about how to get Saul out of here."

She stood in front of them, waiting.

After several minutes of silence, she closed her eyes, turned around, and walked away.

She did this every morning for three straight days, staring at them, interrogating them. She watched the red blips go back and forth.

"I know you understand what I'm saying," she snapped on the third day. "I know he's in there, and I want to talk to whoever the _frak's_ in charge around here so I can get him the _frak_ out. I'll do anything it takes. I just want him out."

They stood motionless. She clenched the fabric of her pants in her fists, angry as hell.

"Go ahead and relay that message," she said, trying her best to sound defiant. "I'll be back tomorrow for my husband."

x x x x

The fourth day Ellen arrived at the front of the detention center, there was a man dressed in black waiting for her at the door. She recognized him as one of the skinjobs, and her heartbeat raced as he stood still in front of her. She wished she could look into eyes.

"You're here for Colonel Tigh." It was a statement, not a question, but there was something in his voice that made her feel uneasy.

"Yes," she said, straightening her shoulders.

"I'm Brother Cavil," he said. He extended his hand and she stared at it for a moment before accepting it. She was disturbed by how warm his palm felt as he shook her hand.

 _There’s nothing human about you._

"Come in," he said, stepping to the side and motioning to the door.

She looked at him, unmoving. She didn't want him to be able to tell whether or not she was afraid. She didn't want to be afraid of him, not of any of them.

 _Do this. Do this for him._

"Oh, what," he scoffed. "We don't want _you_. It's common courtesy to do business inside, not among"—he gave a wave of his arm—"the riffraff out here."

"I want my husband."

"I didn't think you were coming over for dinner." He motioned again toward the door. "Come on."

She felt a lump in her throat and took a deep breath to clear it, then walked past the Cylon's outstretched hand.

The door slammed shut behind them heavily and it rattled her even more. She took a sharp breath as the Cylon strode beside her, folding his sunglasses and tucking them into his pocket.

The hallway was dark and remarkably silent. The high ceiling made it seem cavernous and even more daunting as she walked alongside him. They obviously weren't in the holding area of the center—she didn't hear any signs of life. She'd expected screams and moans and felt thankful that, though unsettling, it was at least quiet.

He cast a glance at her and she could feel his eyes wander down her body. She felt goose bumps rise on her bare legs, her dress cut to a length just over her knee. She stood up a little straighter and ran her hand through her hair, pushing it behind her shoulder to expose her neck to him.

 _Can't hurt._

He stopped next to a metal door, then pulled out a key and jiggled it in the lock. "Frakkin' keys. I hate them. So antiquated. We're in the process of installing biometric identification systems."

"Fascinating," she said, a hint of sarcasm weaving through her voice.

He popped open the door. "Ladies first," he said, pushing it open.

Ellen cautiously looked inside. It appeared to be an apartment, a modestly appointed studio, with a couch and a desk and a kitchenette. She walked in, wringing her hands in front of her.

She heard the Cylon shut the door and she turned to face him, tucking her arms around her body. "Let's talk about my husband."

It was all she could muster, but she was shocked at how confident she sounded while she could feel herself shaking.

"Please, sit. I insist," he said curtly, motioning to the couch.

She smiled, feeling entirely insincere and hoping he couldn't see it in her eyes. She toed off her boots and walked barefooted over to the couch. Sitting down, her skirt slipped up a few inches, exposing more of her thigh. She let it.

 _Might help._

She fingered the hem of her dress—it was fraying, and she didn't know how to sew.

The Cylon sat down next to her, too close. She took a deep, even breath as she faced him.

"So," she said, forcing herself to sound cheerful. She crossed her legs and noticed his eyes drawn to them, if only for a second.

 _Whatever it takes. You can give him a little show._

"Colonel Tigh is fine," he said. "He's been enjoying his accommodations as much as one could expect. Seems to hate sleeping on the concrete. Complains too loudly when he's getting…talked to by the guards. Gets _really_ pissed when you tease him about there being poison in his rations. But these are typical inmate behaviors to be expected. We've done our research. Soon he'll start sympathizing with his captors. Maybe we'll even form a special kind of bond."

Ellen tried to contain her anger and disgust, smiling empathetically. "He's harmless, really. Unless you provoke him."

"It's intriguing, what people will do when provoked," the Cylon said, his voice reverting to a murmur. She kept staring into his eyes even as she felt her stomach twist. "Like form insurgencies. Create alliances. Blow shit up."

She lost her breath for a moment. "I don't know anything about that," she said, tilting her chin upward. "Neither does Saul."

The Cylon hummed, nodding his head.

"So you want him released?"

She felt the stinging threat of tears, but she kept smiling.

 _Keep smiling._

"Very much so."

The Cylon looked thoughtful as his eyes wandered over her body for what seemed like the tenth time. "Are you willing to make an exchange?" he asked, arching his eyebrow.

Ellen felt queasy at the tone of his voice. "Like…information? I…I don't know anything right now, but…"

His warm palm settled on her bare knee.

"You're beautiful," he said. "You're perfection, you know."

His fingers slid under the frayed hem of her dress.

She drew a breath through her gritted teeth and stared at the outline of his hand underneath the fabric.

"Am I?" she asked softly.

 _Did I ever tell you how glad I am I married you?_

The Cylon leaned in, his palm flat against her bare upper thigh. His fingers nudged her legs apart and she uncrossed them. She refused to look down, instead focusing on his eyes. She felt a lump in her throat.

 _Not once._

"You are," he said. He leaned in and she could feel his hot breath across her neck. "So beautiful, Ellen."

 _I'll save it for a special occasion._

Ellen gasped, a gut reaction, as the Cylon's fingers brushed over the damp fabric between her thighs. She blushed furiously at what he'd found. It wasn't for him. None of it was for him.

His fingers stroked over her, pressing harder, and a pant escaped her lips before she regained her composure. "I want him out," she managed, swallowing hard.

His fingers nudged under the fabric and she bit her tongue, rage welling inside her.

 _Stay calm. You can do this._

"You'll get what you want."

His teeth grazed her jaw.

 _Do this for him._

"Call me John."  



	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes we make mistakes when we think we're doing the right thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See Chapter One, but specific thanks on this chapter go to [](http://tjonesy.livejournal.com/profile)[**tjonesy**](http://tjonesy.livejournal.com/).

Ellen left the detention center without checking herself in the mirror. She'd wanted the frak out of that apartment as quickly as possible. She was tired of hearing him, of seeing his eyes follow her about the room as she wavered on the edge of a complete breakdown. But upon walking out the doors, she was self-conscious about her appearance.

 _If I look as awful as I feel, I'm sure I look like hell._

She ran her hand through her hair, working at the knots in the back with shaking fingers. The few red, aggravated marks he had drawn upon her arms burned as the wool of her coat scratched against them.

It was hard to concentrate on her journey home; instead, she wondered if anyone would notice there was a tear in her skirt.

For once she didn't want to be the center of attention. The lingering gazes she felt as she walked made her blush, both in shame and in anger. She didn't want them to see her like that.

 _Nobody should see me like this._

She couldn't feel any lower, used and dirty and smelling of _him_.

x x x x

Ellen found it was easier to deny the reality of things when she was in constant motion.

 _Keep moving, keep occupied._

There was so much to be done. She cleaned everything in their tent, as much as a tent could be cleaned. She arranged the pillows on the cot perfectly, then the blankets, until she was satisfied.

 _Just in case he comes home._

She wasn't sure if she should tell Saul at all about what she'd done, when and if he was released from detention. She wanted to be honest with him—gods, how she craved being honest with him. They'd started over on New Caprica and it'd felt like they'd been given a second chance. Their first night together in the tent, she stayed awake in bed next to him and thought about how the mistakes they'd both made could be forgiven. And he'd seemed comfortable leaving the past behind, even leaving Bill behind on _Galactica_ , instead finding purpose on the ground and meaning in her embrace.

She'd thought they had a fighting chance to have that quintessential life that normal people have, the one with the faithful wife and the attentive husband and everyone, everything, would leave them alone to be happy for one godsdamned time in their lives.

 _How naïve._

It wasn't the way things worked for them. She should have known that eventually, some dark cloud would rain on their parade.

Closing her eyes, she took a shaky breath to compose herself.

 _This tent is too quiet without him._

She decided to head to the market for no reason besides the clamor around her would drown out the echoes of the afternoon.

The sun had burned off the clouds and the sky was an unusual blue. It reminded her of afternoons on the back porch of their house, back when they had one, when Saul was actually off rotation. She'd felt like they hadn't had a care in the world when she snuggled in his arms on a worn chaise lounge.

In retrospect, they didn't.

She wandered the market, looking for nothing in particular. She wasn't hungry, and the offerings had gotten more meager upon the onset of winter. It still existed as a social venue, though, a place for people to see each other and be seen, to connect with each other.

She saw Laura at one of the stands. Since the occupation Ellen rarely saw her out, especially in such a public place. Tory or Maya were picking up most of her necessities. It was a smart move, one Ellen wished Saul would have considered before he went to that frakking pyramid game.

 _It's not his fault this is happening to you._

Laura still risked going to the school to teach, but that was Laura, as far as Ellen had observed. She'd give up a little, but wouldn't give up all of it.

Ellen felt relieved to see her until she remembered the argument she'd started in the schoolhouse tent. As much as she needed to talk to someone, she wasn't sure Laura would be in any mood to indulge her after she'd vilified Bill. To her face.

As if on cue, Laura looked up and saw her. Ellen diverted her attention to the half-empty basket of potatoes in front of her.

 _Gods, I frakking hate potatoes._

Laura was already headed over—she could see it out of the corner of her eye. Ellen tensed up, not sure what to expect. She hadn't left on very good terms. In fact, she'd been a downright bitch.

"Ellen." Laura stopped next to her. Her voice was tentative, an unusual tone. "How've you been?"

 _Not the best question right now, Laura._

"Better." Ellen pulled her hair behind her ear and glanced at Laura. Her expression, if she read it correctly—which was always a crapshoot—seemed slightly concerned.

"Is there something wrong?"

 _You mean besides Saul being in detention? Besides me whoring out my body to get him back?_

Ellen felt a burn behind her eyes and looked back at the stand, picking up a dirty potato and examining it. She suddenly felt ashamed.

 _She'd never do anything like that._

"No! No, I just...you know. I miss Saul."

Laura touched her shoulder and Ellen tried to smile. "I know how that feels."

They were quiet then, the sounds of the market encompassing them. Conversations, laughter, the rumble of a cart.

 _This is awkward._

"Surprising to see you out here," Ellen said, clearing her throat. "Thought you were keeping a low profile nowadays."

"I got tired of hiding," Laura answered, staring off into the distance. "I can't live like that."

 _But hiding is safe._

"I wanted to apologize for how things went the other day." Laura's voice sounded so formal, like she was talking about the weather. It surprised her; Ellen assumed she should be the one apologizing, but she was thankful she didn't have to make the first move.

"Me too," Ellen said. "It's okay. I think we're both going through a helluva lot right now."

 _There's the understatement of the year._

"We have to cut ourselves some slack." Ellen tossed the potato back in the bin.

Laura took a deep breath as her hand slipped off Ellen's shoulder. "You're right."

They were silent until it became awkward. Ellen felt like she was hitting a wall with Laura for the umpteenth time. She felt a need to reach out to her somehow, but couldn't quite figure out how to do it. Laura was an enigma, and Ellen never was any good at deciphering mysteries.

Ellen gave her the most enthusiastic smile she could muster. It was one of her few strengths—appearing happy when she wasn't.

"Well. It was nice running into you here," Ellen said. "Take care."

Laura hummed with a nod. "Don't be a stranger."

Her smile was absent, and Ellen wondered what she was truly thinking. Their eyes met for a few seconds before Ellen walked away, unsure of where to wander.

x x x x

 _124th Day of the Cylon Occupation of New Caprica_

 _Went to the market today for the first time in a week. It was a challenge. It was me, challenging myself to not be afraid; it was me, challenging them, because I'm tired of living in fear._

 _All I could think about was you. Every time I heard a deep voice or a ring of laughter, or wandered along the edge of the tents where you can see the banks of the river and the field where we always said goodbye. I've been avoiding that, not because I don't want to think about you, but because it hurts to think about you when I don't know where you are, or even if you're alive. If I think, I question. Whether you'll come back for us or not, how much longer we're destined to be in this godsforsaken place._

 _I don't want to give in to the idea that this is how we're meant to end. It doesn't seem right after all we've been through._

 _I saw Ellen today and she looked haunted. Saul's disappearance—well, we know very well it isn't a disappearance. We know where he is. What we don't know is what happens inside those walls, and I think that idea, beyond all others, is what tears her apart inside._

 _Uncertainty eats away at our hope at every chance we give it._

 _I'm trying not to give it those chances, but with every day that passes it gets harder to believe in this mysterious concept of salvation we've relentlessly pursued._

Laura drew the blankets over her body and pulled her knees up, huddled for warmth. She stared into the darkness, giving in to the idea of another restless night.

x x x x

There were times Ellen was able to pretend she was somewhere else, with someone else, doing something else, anything else. Times when Cavil didn't bruise her, didn't seem disgusted by touching her, and times he didn't taunt her with his eyes and his words.

This was one of those times, an easier time than most. She would think of different things while she frakked him—this time it was a summer jazz concert on Picon, the breeze off the lake hitting her face. Gods, she loved the water. Saul's hand was tightly clasped with hers as they took swigs from his flask and joked about frakking around right there on the blanket.

 _Nobody's watching_ , Saul had told her as his hand crept up her sundress. _Nobody'll know._

During these stomach-churning trysts with Cavil, she always left her clothes on, never revealing more than necessary. Cavil wasn't allowed to kiss her, wasn't allowed to put his mouth on her. He actually respected these few rules, though she knew he sometimes cheated by sliding his hand between them so he could taste her on his fingers. He would suck them, staring at her with that gleam in his eyes that made her want to rip both of them out.

She tried to ignore it, but sometimes, when she smelled her arousal on him, it was all she could do not to turn her head and vomit. Or maybe she wouldn't turn her head.

 _It would serve him right._

The times he hurt her were few and far between, but when he did it caught her off guard—it seemed like his test to see if she was paying attention, to drag her back into his nightmare and out of the daydreams that kept her sane. Scratches, bruises, his hands under her dress, his fingers around her neck, his nails raking over the soft skin of her belly, down her arms, like he was marking her, trying to make her belong to him somehow.

Most of the times he didn't hit her in the face.

He'd always come inside her, hold her hips down in place, his long fingers digging at her hipbones as he thrust, again and again. This was the part she hated the most, when she felt the most violated. She didn't want any remnants of him left inside of her, and he knew it.

This time was no different. She tried to focus on the whirring sound of the ceiling fan— _spinning, spinning, spinning_ —instead of his satisfied groans.

She always asked him about Saul when he'd finished. She'd casually inquire about when he'd be released, sending a silent prayer to the Lords of Kobol that this would be the last time she'd have to frak him, knowing it most likely was not.

He always cracked a remark teasing her about her wantonness. This time he asked her if she even knew how many of the brothers she'd actually frakked.

"We all look the same, you know," he said with a chuckle.

She wanted to kill all of them. Every single last one of them with her bare hands.

She took a deep breath, smiled and asked about Saul one more time.

His assurance was to give them some time to debate their decision. As if there was a Quorum of Cylons deciding how much was enough—how much of her body's sacrifice was worth a human life.

She left him in his apartment, on his couch. He may have ravaged her, taken everything he could get his hands on, but she always got to leave him behind.

x x x x

Ellen had gotten used to the lack of privacy in the communal showers at the camp. Civilians were expected to share facilities since the Colonists' resources for constructing less demeaning accommodations were sorely lacking. There were several shower heads, but no walls separating them. People showered out in the open, pretending not to look at each other.

She was relieved when she entered the shower tent to find it silent, the smell of damp earth settling into her senses. She was alone. Entirely, completely alone, if only for a few moments.

She took off her clothes, permeated with her sweat and his, and folded them neatly into a pile on the bench outside her stall. She would have to wear them again.

She waited until the lukewarm water ran over her head and down her face before she let her tears flow freely.

Thus began her ritual, and it was always the same.

She ran her hands over her body, reclaiming it as her own, washing the filth away. His touches, the words he rasped at her, the ache deep inside of her body, what he left inside of her—all of it, down the drain, back into the sewer where they belonged.

She let herself cry harder than usual because there was nobody listening. She usually avoided looking down—she used to love looking at herself, admiring her body and all the work she put into it—but every time she saw a new bruise or scratch upon her skin, she grew angry at herself for letting someone do this to her; when her anger had passed, despair would set in when she realized she'd have to go back for more.

Maybe she liked it. She didn't know herself anymore, anyway. Maybe she didn't deserve to have Saul back, and this was the lesson she had yet to learn. She'd frakked around on him several times before, some times he knew about, some times he didn't, and now she had to frak around to get him back in her life. The irony of it was unsettling.

She grasped for the communal soap, a harsh mixture of wood ash and animal fats that smelled of the smoke that permeated the camp. She rubbed it on her hands and began washing every inch of her body until her skin was reddened.

Then she did it again.  



	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes we make mistakes when we think we're doing the right thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See Chapter One, but specific thanks on this chapter go to [](http://tjonesy.livejournal.com/profile)[**tjonesy**](http://tjonesy.livejournal.com/) and [](http://larsfarm77.livejournal.com/profile)[**larsfarm77**](http://larsfarm77.livejournal.com/).

Dusk fell on New Caprica City, reminding Laura of how depressing it was to watch the slow succumbing of light to darkness.

She was trying to grade papers, convinced her pupils would never know she'd been drinking an ample cup of moonshine while she gave them their marks.

It had been a rough few days. She couldn't stop thinking about encountering Ellen at the market and the conversation they'd had. She'd gone to the market out of sheer will—she was tired of hiding and tired of catering to her fears. She didn't want to let the Cylons dictate her freedom anymore. There was no way they deserved that power over her. Despite her rationalizations, she'd been nervous as she picked up the vegetables she needed out of the few available.

Then she saw Ellen across the crowd. Saul's absence was really taking its toll on her—she could see it in her eyes and in the way she composed herself. She was hurting.

 _Of course she's hurting._

Laura wondered if people viewed her the same way. She hoped they didn't.

She tried to keep busy throughout the day to stave off thoughts of Bill. It was easier to ignore the feelings that would overcome her if she let her mind slip. Sometimes she missed him so much it ached. Other times she was angry at him. Angry that he hadn't fought hard enough, even though she knew—logically, she knew—that it would have been a losing battle against the force of the Cylons that had jumped into their safe haven's orbit so many months ago.

She took another long drink of the alcohol, feeling it burn her throat. She had no idea how Saul could down so much of it.

 _How he used to. No, how he could._

But the warmth it provided was nearly worth it.

 _Maybe that's how._

Laura was taking another drink when she heard someone outside her tent.

She twitched in her seat for a moment, thinking of the large stick she had inconveniently stored under her cot, when Ellen walked in unannounced.

Laura knew something was wrong because for the first time, Ellen wouldn't look into her eyes. Her hair was slightly wet, her face reddened.

"I've had to do some things," she began, before she seemed to run out of words.

Laura's stomach sank, and she stood up and watched Ellen shift on her feet.

 _Oh, Ellen, what did you do?_

"Come in," Laura said, composing herself and retrieving a second cup from a wooden rack. "Sit down."

"Thanks," Ellen said with a soft sniffle. She wrapped her arm around her waist and took a seat at the table, watching as Laura poured alcohol into the cup, to the brim.

"That'll do for starters, huh?" Laura said to encourage her, settling down on her own chair. Ellen wrapped both hands around the cup and looked at it pensively, then took a sip and winced.

"Bill didn't leave you anything better?" Ellen asked before she took another, longer sip.

Laura gave her the best smile she could. "Sadly, no."

"Selfish bastard."

 _Wow. That stung._

"Sorry. I didn't mean it like that," Ellen apologized, noticing Laura's reaction.

Laura picked up her own cup, looking into it. "It's okay." She took a long drink, draining it. "Maybe he is sometimes."

She picked up the bottle and poured more for herself. She looked up at Ellen, raising her eyebrow. "You need more?"

Ellen downed her drink and set her cup on the table in front of her. "Now I do."

Laura poured Ellen a drink, then recorked the bottle, knowing it should probably be her last round.

 _Probably._

She drank and leaned back, glancing at Ellen before turning her attention to the tent flap that wavered with the breeze. She wanted to ask Ellen what had happened, but didn't know how to approach it. As much as she hated the idea, she wondered if Ellen had made some deal with the devil, some arrangement hastily agreed upon based on the fleeting notion of having her most prized possession returned to her.

She knew all too well about promises, about clinging to the idea that maybe, some way, what she did would bring her what she wanted the most.

"What are you thinking about?" Ellen asked.

"I was thinking about us. How we've been so adversarial in the past, yet here we are."

 _She doesn't need to know._

"Mmm, I know," Ellen said, taking a longer drink. "I thought you were a real bitch when I met you."

 _That's more like it._

Laura laughed. It felt good to do so. "I probably was. I know I was. I was going through a lot."

"How's that different from now?"

 _She has a point._

Laura thought about when she'd met Ellen—it was under the most suspicious of circumstances, when nobody was to be trusted. She'd lost her home, her life as she knew it, even Richard, and she'd been exchanging barbs and veiled threats with Bill at every turn. Ellen's emergence had caught her off guard, causing even more disruption in her already disrupted life.

"I don't know. Maybe it's not different, but my reaction to my situation is different now."

"How?"

Laura felt herself starting to tense up at Ellen's line of questioning, but she was also intrigued by how Ellen could be so flippantly pointed. She took a deep breath, contemplating the warmth of the alcohol coursing through her body.

 _The alcohol you keep ingesting at a slightly alarming rate._

"I've always been the kind of person to distance myself from others, to question everyone and everything. Always."

"I couldn't tell." Ellen snickered and tossed back the rest of her drink, her posture more relaxed. There was a hint of a smile on her face.

"I'm serious."

"I know you are."

Laura took a deep breath and examined Ellen.

 _It's okay to trust her. You've got no one else to trust down here._

"I've changed. I'm still figuring out how I've changed." Laura started tracing the edge of her cup with her finger, endless circles. She focused on the fluid motion as she tried to think of the right words to say. She never had a problem discussing business, but this was far from business, and she couldn't help but feel nervous.

She didn't look up at Ellen, but shifted uncomfortably in her seat as she felt Ellen watching her.

 _I wonder what she's thinking._

"Does this have anything to do with Bill?" Ellen's voice was tentative, yet Laura could tell that she knew the answer already.

 _Of course it does. It has a lot to do with him. She just wants me to admit it._

"It might."

 _She's going to see right through that one._

"Might," Ellen repeated. Laura looked up to see her smirk and tilt back in her chair. "Bill's a lot like you, you know. I'm sure you know that."

"Mmm, how?"

She asked, but she already knew. She wanted to hear what Ellen had to say. She'd been curious about Ellen's perspective on Bill since their conversation at the bar.

 _It seems like so long ago._

"Bill mans the lighthouse," Ellen said. "His job is to ensure the safety of everyone, to lead them through the storm, to help them avoid the rocks, but when it comes down to it, he's just a light in the dark, alone. He exists to serve his function. He rarely looks outside that." Ellen paused. "At least, that was the way he was, before he…"

Ellen faltered.

"Before he…" Laura pressed with a soft smile. Ellen tossed her hair and leaned over, her elbows on the tabletop. She dragged the bottle across the table and poured herself another cup, then drank from it, her expression contemplative.

"I don't know, Laura."

 _You can't backpedal now._

"Before I came along?" Laura suggested, her stomach fluttering at the suggestion.

"Hmm.” Ellen swirled the liquid around her cup, watching it lap at the edge. "He loves you, you know."

The words surprised Laura more than she'd expected. She laughed uncomfortably and looked away, her fingertips pressing against the tabletop.

 _You can't know that. I don't even know that yet._

Clearing her throat, Laura grabbed her cup and lifted it to Ellen, meeting her eyes with as genuine of a smile as she could manage. "Cheers. To temporary respite through alcohol."

Their cups clinked in the middle of the table.

"Cheers," Ellen repeated, tossing it back.

Laura drank what remained in her cup, having lost track of how much she'd actually consumed.

 _It burns going down._

x x x x

Ellen felt the silence that followed her revelation about Bill's feelings wasn't necessarily awkward, but it wasn't comfortable either. The reality that neither of them really knew each other well was becoming obvious.

She'd thrown it out there—the "L" word—because she knew it would make Laura uncomfortable, but at the same time, curious. It took a lot to break down the walls the ex-President had constructed. Ellen knew the ability to keep her guard up was something Laura had refined to perfection. She'd practically made indifference an art form. She was that type of woman.

Her head slightly fuzzy, Ellen found a welcome relief in the calm satisfaction that radiated through her body. She watched Laura as she placed her cup upon the table in front of them with a little too much bravado.

"So," Laura said. "How did the Tighs come to be?"

 _Give and take. I'm onto your game._

"I can hardly remember, it was so long ago," Ellen mused. "This could be a figment of my imagination based on a lot of experiences, but I do believe we met in a bar."

It was true. She was an honest drunk. Laura had to know that already. It felt good to think about something different for once, something that made her happy.

"That's surprising." Laura's sarcasm, usually biting and rarely good-humored toward her, now seemed to be nothing but a tease. They shared a grin.

"We met back in college." She remembered Saul was still in the detention center, experiencing gods knew what by the hand of gods knew whom, and felt awash with guilt.

 _While you're sitting here relaxing, drinking, shooting the shit. What the hell are you doing?_

"College was a long time ago," Laura said, reeling Ellen back to the conversation.

"We were _in love_." She shifted in her seat, more uncomfortable by the second. "It was crazy, our attraction. I'd never felt anything like it. I still haven't. Which is good, I guess, since I'm still married to the frakker."

 _If he's alive._

 _Of course he's alive. Stop it._

Ellen took a shaky breath. "Even though sometimes I think he's married to the Fleet."

 _Turn the focus back on her._

Laura bit her lip, drawing it between her teeth. "That never changes, does it?"

Her voice was uncertain, like she knew the truth but didn't really want to hear it.

"I told you it doesn't," Ellen said, shrugging. "Doesn't matter how long you're together. There's always a part of them that doesn't belong to you."

Laura looked away then. Her voice was soft when she continued. "I can't imagine loving someone for that long."

 _Me either, sometimes._

"We've had our ups and downs."

 _Like a frakkin' roller coaster._

"Everybody does," Laura said. "It's the ups that make the downs worthwhile."

"If that's so, then I'm expecting one hell of an up after all this." Ellen closed her eyes and took a deep breath to try and calm her nerves. "If Saul comes back."

 _If I can get him back._

She felt the sudden urge to get up, to go back to the detention center and demand from that motherfrakker Cavil that her husband be released. She'd paid her dues many times over. There had to be a point where she'd given up enough.

"He will," Laura said firmly. "And so will Bill."

 _I wish I were so sure._

x x x x

Laura watched Ellen's expression change when she mentioned Saul. It was a little determined, a little desperate.

 _She'd go find him now if she could._

"I can't..." Ellen began, fiddling with a button on her coat. "I can't do this. I have to...I'm sorry, I have to go now."

Ellen stood up, her legs a bit wobbly after the drinks they'd downed. Laura followed suit, her fingers tracing the table to steady herself. She blushed at how unstable she was. It was unusual for her to get to this point, but New Caprica had led her to believe that sometimes, she needed to get frakked up.

 _This is one of those times._

She walked around the table to where Ellen hesitantly stood. Ellen wouldn't meet her eyes and Laura's heart ached at the idea of where exactly she thought she had to go, or what she had to do.

 _What have you been sacrificing for him?_

Laura stepped closer and pulled her into an embrace. It was unexpected and impetuous, and Ellen stiffened up before hugging her back, her arms slipping around Laura's neck and pulling her tight.

 _It's not just the cold that's making her shake._

She buried her face in Ellen's hair, because that in itself was comforting—the feeling of her hair brushing her cheeks, the scent of ashy soap that was now so familiar.

She felt Ellen's breath on her neck and held her more tightly.

"I want him back so badly," Ellen whispered.

Laura felt a burn behind her eyelids, the threat of tears immediate. "I know."

They were silent for long moments, their breathing evening out.

The sound of Gaeta's voice over the loudspeaker—Felix Gaeta, even the thought of that traitor made her angry—indicated that curfew was to begin in five minutes. It repeated, a short, succinct statement that Laura had memorized by the fourth time she heard it, though she tried not to think too hard about the key phrase—"severe penalties will be imposed."

How he could say these things to his own people was beyond her. It was horrifying.

But it was routine, and this announcement would be followed in three minutes by a warning siren. It always grated on her nerves, no matter how many times she heard it.

"Shit," Ellen groaned, sniffling and pulling her head away from Laura's shoulder. "I gotta go. I gotta get back."

 _Back where?_

"Do you have enough time to make it home?" Laura asked. She stepped away from Ellen, steadying herself with a firm grip on the table. She watched as Ellen glanced at the front of the tent.

"If I run," Ellen admitted. "Or...stumble. Quickly."

Laura bit her lip, her stomach churning. The last thing she wanted was for Ellen to get thrown into detention. And she wasn't sold on the idea that Ellen was going home at all.

The distant siren began then and Laura shuddered at the sound. It was a horrible wail, an ominous reminder of their condition.

 _She won't be safe if she leaves now._

Ellen made a move to leave. Laura opened her mouth and took a deep breath.

"I used to frak President Adar."

Ellen looked over her shoulder and Laura felt a deep blush spread across her cheeks. This divulgence of details was a move of desperation on her part. She knew Ellen wouldn't be able to resist the carrot dangling in front of her.

She felt queasy, suddenly too exposed.

 _Just frakkin' relax._

Ellen turned to her, her tone uncertain. "Why are you telling me this?"

 _Because sometimes we make mistakes when we think we're doing the right thing._

"I've never told anyone."

"Why are you telling _me_?"

 _Come on, come on, she's so close._

"Because I trust you," Laura said.

Ellen glanced back at the tent flaps, her shoulders slumped slightly forward. "It's curfew."

"It's not safe."

Laura walked back to her chair and sat down. She leaned her elbows on the table and pressed her lips against her clasped hands, watching Ellen shift on her feet.

"I frakked him for a decade," she said. "Probably more, off and on. I don't quite remember how long it was. It started with his mayoral campaign."

Just saying the words brought a rush of emotion back to Laura that she hadn't let herself feel in a long time. She'd never dealt with losing Richard, she knew that. She pushed it back and moved on, like she always did. She didn't think about him, didn't want to think about him.

Offering up the discussion to Ellen opened a wound she knew she had never let heal.

 _But it's how I'll keep her here._

x x x x

Laura's confession had blindsided Ellen and at first, she found herself wary of it.

Then again, as she walked up to the table and sat down across from Laura, she couldn't come up with a single reason why Laura would lie to her about something like that. If she didn't want her to leave she could have just said so. But she offered up Adar for a reason.

 _We may have more in common than I thought._

She leaned in over the table and examined Laura's expression. Laura had reverted to her more formal persona, the frivolity provided by the alcohol at least temporarily suspended. And she looked downright morose, like maybe she missed him more than she'd let on.

 _Well frak, now her attraction to Bill is making a lot more sense._

"So, Richard Adar. Wasn't he—"

"Yes. He was married."

 _Oh, my. Aren't we a little deep in the mire?_

"Quite the sin," Ellen said. "So, how was he in bed?"

"I stuck around for a while, didn't I?"

"Maybe it was his personality."

Laura's smile was slight. Ellen didn't know what to think. Whenever she'd seen Richard Adar on the television he'd looked like he had the personality of a hunk of granite.

"At the beginning it was his personality," Laura said before straightening in her chair. Ellen watched her and could see her thinking. "Gods, he was so full of brilliance at the beginning. Idealism, optimism and a sound head on his shoulders. All those traits good politicians have. Good politicians keep them. Bad politicians lose them along the way."

"Was he a bad one?"

Laura folded her arms across her chest, her eyes on the table.

 _Don't close up now._

"He turned out to be. It was over for us anyway. It ended the day I left for _Galactica_."

"What a breakup. You really shouldn't tell many people that you had a fight with your boyfriend before he died in a nuclear holocaust."

Laura wordlessly stared at her cup, her jaw set. Ellen heard her take a deep breath.

 _He really meant something to her._

Ellen wondered if it was the only way Laura could say such things—by pretending the other person wasn't sitting right in front of her. "There was a time I'd do anything for him," Laura said quietly.

Ellen's brow furrowed. She didn't know why she felt so upset by Laura's statement. "You don't say those things unless you mean them."

Laura looked up. Ellen didn't mean for her voice to sound so sharp. She bit her cheek in embarrassment.

 _Isolate the one person reaching out to you. Good one._

Ellen ran her fingers through her hair and tightened her coat around her body. It was cooling down quickly and Ellen realized she was severely underdressed, still wearing her dress from earlier. At least the alcohol was keeping her warm. "I'm sorry," she whispered.

"What's happening to you, Ellen?"

Laura sounded like part of her was bracing for the answer.

 _Oh, gods, I'm not ready to go there with you._

"I just need him back," Ellen said. She knew she was repeating herself. It was the same thing that swirled in her head every waking hour, the same thing that kept her going back to that detention center every frakking day.

"I know."

"No, you don't know," Ellen said, suddenly livid. She gripped the table and felt a tear slip down her cheek. "You don't know, Laura. You don't know what it's like, _you_ haven't given anything up, you're just sitting here waiting for Bill to come back. Waiting. I can't wait." She repressed the sob that ached to be released from her chest. "I can't wait."

x x x x

Laura tried not to cry at the anguish she heard in Ellen's voice—it both pained her and frightened her. She kept her eyes on the woman in front of her, her throat constricted.

"If you sacrifice yourself for him," Laura began. She had to stop and close her eyes for a moment. Her mind was racing and she found it hard to pin down her thoughts. "Even if you get him back, you're never going to be the same."

"I know. But if I don't…"

Laura watched as Ellen wiped her tears with the collar of her coat.

"I'd do the same thing," Laura said, gritting her teeth. It was so hard to keep looking at her but she wanted her to understand. "Ellen, I'd do the same _frakkin'_ thing."

 _I'd do the same thing if it were Bill._

She brushed a tear away before Ellen could see it.

"I'm so tired." Ellen closed her eyes and breathed deeply. "I'm so tired of all of this."

 _I'm tired of it too. So tired of this frakkin' place._

"Let's go to sleep," Laura said, standing up and walking over to her trunk. "I have a pair of pants you can wear. You must be freezing."

Laura rummaged through the clothes until she pulled out a pair of black pants. She brought them to Ellen and offered them to her. "These should fit you. We're about the same size."

"Thank you," Ellen said, taking them. She held them in her hand, seemingly lost in thought.

"It's okay." Laura touched Ellen's hair, tucking it behind her ear. Ellen looked up and gave her a small smile, the trance broken. "Put them on. I'll get into bed and wait for you."

Laura walked over to her cot, drawing the layers of blanket back. She nudged off her shoes with her feet and slid under the blankets, then watched Ellen pull the pants on out of the corner of her eye.

 _She's staying. She's safe here, at least for tonight._

Ellen looked at her and hesitated.

"Get in here," Laura said. "It's not cold in here like it is out there."

Laura felt like she was coaxing a distrustful kitten toward the first food it'd had in days. She took a deep breath of relief when Ellen walked over to her, then took off her coat. "I'm sorry, I don't sleep in my coat," she explained, her voice soft.

"It's okay."

 _You keep saying that._

Ellen sat down on the cot, then took a deep breath and lay down on her side with her back turned to Laura.

Laura quickly tugged the blankets up over them and pressed her chest into Ellen's back. She closed her eyes and tried not to feel guilty for the comfort she felt at having a warm body next to her again.

 _You're here to comfort her._

"It's okay," Laura murmured as she settled against her, her arm sliding around Ellen's waist. "You're just cold and tired. Just need to sleep."

"Thank you," she heard Ellen say quietly. She felt her breathe.

"S'okay."

 _It's okay. We just need to sleep._   



	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes we make mistakes when we think we're doing the right thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See Chapter One, but specific thanks on this chapter go to [](http://somadanne.livejournal.com/profile)[**somadanne**](http://somadanne.livejournal.com/) and [](http://tjonesy.livejournal.com/profile)[**tjonesy**](http://tjonesy.livejournal.com/).

The siren sounded in the morning at the end of curfew. Ellen awoke with it every day, always irritated that the frakkin' Cylons thought they had the right to tell everybody when to wake up. But this time, its shrill tone exacerbated her pounding headache and she groaned.

 _Frak, one day I'm gonna quit this._

The feeling of Laura's chest shifting along her back served as a reminder of where she was and how she'd ended up sharing a cot. She felt Laura tighten her arm around her waist, their hips fitting together snugly despite the layers of clothes between them.

She took a deep breath and kept her eyes closed.

It hadn't been nearly as awkward as she'd expected it to be when they slipped into Laura's cot together. There had been no questions. It was what it was and nothing more than that. The two of them needed comfort like they needed air to breathe.

Maybe it was their exhaustion that made it easy to slip into an embrace, a tight hug that lasted until they'd fallen asleep. And sleep she did, for the first time in weeks. She was so weary she hadn't dreamed. Or if she did, she couldn't remember it.

If someone had told Ellen two years earlier that she'd end up in a cot with the ex-President of the Twelve Colonies in a tent on a barely habitable planet, she would have laughed and told them to jump off a frakking cliff.

But when she felt Laura's breath warm on her ear and heard her soft noise upon waking, she realized it made more sense than she'd ever thought it would.

Laura took a deep breath, her chest swelling into Ellen's back, the gentlest of reminders that they were still twined together.

x x x x

Laura wasn't used to waking up in her cot with her nose nuzzled into a mess of blond hair. She grunted as it tickled her nose, then realized exactly whose hair was doing the tickling.

 _Sleeping with Ellen Tigh. Who'd have predicted this turn of events?_

She took a deep breath, Ellen's back pressed into her chest. They were so warm, huddled together under the blankets. Laura tried to open her eyes but decided her hangover would rather they stay shut.

Laura was surprised at the different side of Ellen she'd seen—the less abrasive, more vulnerable side—then again, she'd revealed things to Ellen that she normally wouldn't have revealed to anyone. Laura tried not to let herself feel uneasy about letting her guard down.

 _It's okay. Things are different down here. I needed that. We both did._

"I should head out soon," Ellen said, though she didn't move. She hadn't realized Ellen was awake. From the sounds of it, she'd had too much to drink the night before as well.

"Do you want some tea? I could scrounge up some breakfast."

She'd forgotten how good it felt to wake up with someone next to her, and what an indulgence it was to have someone around first thing in the morning.

Laura felt Ellen begin to shift, so she pulled her arm away, allowing her space.

 _What are you going to do?_

Laura had resigned herself to the fact that solace, whenever she found it, never lasted for long. She took it for what it was worth, without expectations.

x x x x

Ellen sat up, slipping off of the cot and standing upright. She began to scan the room for her shoes.

"On the mat, next to the stove," Laura said. Ellen turned her head to see Laura sitting up on the edge of the cot, watching her intently. She retrieved her shoes and pulled them on, only half-aware that Laura had stood up and had moved closer to her.

"Are you all right?" Laura asked, touching her arm.

"Yeah," Ellen's mind was racing, guilt and fear swirling inside her. "I just…I'll get him back, there has to be a way. I've been trying so hard. I don't know what else I can do, I just feel so helpless."

"He'll come back."

Ellen looked into her eyes and saw a familiar fear.

 _You're vulnerable too. You don't ever admit it, but you are._

"So will Bill," Ellen said.

 _For you. For all of us._

Laura moved her hand from Ellen's arm and shifted her gaze to the ground, her arms crossing over her stomach.

 _Mentioning him made this all the more real, didn't it?_

"He will," Laura murmured with a glance up into Ellen's eyes. "I believe in him."

"Good," Ellen answered. "It's good to believe in something."

Ellen walked to the tent flap and opened it. She glanced back at Laura. "Thank you."

Laura nodded and gave her a half-smile. "Thank you."

The air was cold as Ellen walked up the worn path that led to the detention center. So many people had walked this path by now, mostly under duress. She was walking it willingly.

x x x x

Ellen frakked him again.

This time her fury welled up and spilled past her lips. She called him names. She grunted and hit him and cried out in anger.

He hit her back, across the face, and it shut her up for a shorter time than she expected.

It took everything she had to not wrap her arms around his scrawny motherfrakking neck.

The end, which came not a moment too soon, was punctuated by his grunts and growls that pained her when she heard them.

 _It always ends like that._

She walked over to her coat and boots, ignoring his chuckles. She looked at her face in the mirror, noting the fresh mark on her lip from his fist.

"And when do I get what I want?"

She always asked him afterward. His answer was always the same.

"I believe that's happening right now."

Except this time, his answer was different.

x x x x

Cavil told Ellen to wait outside for Saul's release. She did, the minutes lasting for what seemed like hours. She ran her fingers through her hair nervously, pacing outside the steel gates.

She tried to convince herself that when Saul saw her, he wouldn't be able to tell that she was still sweaty from having just frakked someone else.

Saul emerged from the detention center and she shouted for him, her body shaking. He was wearing the same clothes as the day he'd left, but he was a changed man in ways she could see, and probably in ways she couldn't.

 _Those motherfrakkers. Godsdamn them._

She hugged him tightly and he leaned into her. She'd noticed his limp when he'd passed the gates and she felt a swirl of anger. Running her hands along his beard, she wondered what was behind the gauze over his eye, but didn't want to ask.

He leaned into her, using her for support. His weight felt comforting because it was him.

"Sorry I'm leaning on ya," he muttered. "Just need a little help till the leg heals."

She squeezed his hip, an unspoken response.

 _It's the least I can do._

They arrived back at their tent, a long walk through crowds of people who seemed interested in the change apparent on his face. She clung to his arm, ready to defend him at any moment, casting a glare at anyone who she caught staring at him.

She hadn't been able to protect him then, but she could now.

"Are you okay?" she asked, turning to him, trailing her fingers down his chest.

"Nothin' that can't heal," he grumbled. "Well, except for the vision impairment."

She let a small laugh loose but felt her throat thick with unshed tears. She touched the side of his face near the patch.

"Does it hurt?"

"Never really hurt," he said, looking aside, then back at her with a lopsided grin. "Maybe stung a little."

She cupped his face, his beard soft on her palm, and ran her thumb across his cheek.

"What happened to you in there?" she whispered.

"Aw, Ellen, I don't really wanna talk about any of it."

He turned away from her and made his way to their table, struggling as he kept his weight off of his injured leg.

 _There's so much we don't know about each other now._

He shed his coat, tossing it on the back of one of the chairs at their makeshift table. He sat down slowly, flinching with a sharp breath.

"Why don't you want to talk about it?"

He let out an exasperated sigh and rolled his head on his shoulders. "I wanna leave it there, back in that frakkin' hellhole. It has no business bein' a part of our lives."

She crossed her arms in front of her chest. "Did they hurt you?"

"They hurt everyone in there, Ellen."

She felt her stomach twist, thinking of how Saul was in the same building, enduring other kinds of pain, while she conducted her negotiations with the Cavil brother.

She walked over to him at the table and he slid his arm around her waist, pressing a kiss into her abdomen.

"But I'm here," he said, looking up at her. "And I'm gonna be fine. We're gonna be fine."

She nodded, trying to smile. "I know."

He kept looking into her eyes. It suddenly felt too intense, like if he hunted hard enough, he'd find out the truth of what she'd done.

"Did they tell you…did they tell you why they let you out?" she asked, gulping down a lump in her throat. Her voice was high and she hoped he wouldn't be able to decipher her nervousness.

"They just said they were finished with me," he said. "I don't know what they frakkin' wanted. Information on the resistance, information on where the Fleet jumped to, they asked all kindsa questions. I didn't tell 'em anything. Man's gotta stick to his guns. Then today, they just let me go like it was nothing."

"Oh, my gods," Ellen breathed, her heartbeat racing. "That's…amazing."

She would never tell him. Never, not in a thousand years, what she'd done.

She pulled his head to her stomach, raking her fingernails over the back of his scalp.

"Gods, I missed you," Saul said.

"You did, huh?" She pulled away and gave him a grin. He chuckled and stood up—she held him firmly as he almost lost his balance. His fingers sifted through the dirty strands of her hair. She blushed at the fact that even in the event of their reunion, she wasn't nearly as beautiful as she wanted to be for him. She felt dirty, used, but gods if it wasn't all worth it. Looking at him now, the adoration she felt...

"I did," he said, his voice wavering. "Every frakkin' day, Ellen."

"I missed you too," she whispered, kissing his palm. "So much."

There had been longer times he'd been gone in the past, but this absence had left her hollow, not knowing where he'd gone or what was being done to him. She wondered if he could see it in her eyes or sense it in the way she moved more tentatively into his embrace.

He bent down to kiss her and she accepted his mouth—it was him, the warm brush of his lips, the soft sound in the back of his throat.

 _It’s him._

She kissed him harder, easing her hands up the back of his shirt, taut muscles straining under her fingers. She felt rough patches along the expanse of his skin and whimpered at the realization that they were abrasions.

 _Gods, Saul._

"I wanna touch you," he said, his voice hoarse against her jaw. His mouth traveled to her neck. "Everywhere, all night, and I don't want to stop. I don't want to stop ever again."

She pressed closer to him so he wouldn't see her tears.

"Hold me," she whispered. "Don't let go."

x x x x

Ellen put out the candles and walked up behind him, sliding her arms around his waist.

 _If it's dark he can't see the marks._

"Hey," she breathed, kissing between his shoulder blades, through the thin cotton of his shirt. She slipped her hand down past his belt to cup him and heard him exhale slowly. She stroked him but didn't feel him getting harder.

 _It'll take some time._

Saul turned and kissed her. He began to remove her clothes in the near darkness—her eyes adjusted to it, and she felt briefly ashamed at the surprise of finding the square of gauze still covering one of his eyes.

 _What used to be an eye. Motherfrakkers._

He fumbled with the buttons on her wool coat, his perception still askew, not used to his single-vision sight. She put her hands over his and pulled them away.

"Allow me," she said, biting her lip and smirking as she undid the last few buttons.

She shrugged it off and stood in front of him, still in the dress from...

 _Don't think about that._

She wanted to be completely naked in front of him, only for him. She slid the shoulder straps down and the dress fell to her feet.

He looked at her body from head to toe before he touched her bare skin with the lightest, most reverent touch she could have imagined.

"Ellen," he breathed, his hands sliding along her sides as she removed her bra. He slid his hands into the back of her underwear and worked it down her legs. She shivered, goose bumps covering her skin. His mouth covered her breast and she arched her back to him, pulling his head closer and moaning softly at the light touch of his teeth to her nipple.

 _He feels so good...better than he's ever felt._

She tugged his shirt up over his head, desperate to feel his skin on hers. She pressed her breasts against Saul's chest and pulled his head down to kiss him hard, walking slowly backward.

He followed her lead, his hands traveling over her back. She whimpered into his mouth and the back of her legs hit the cot.

 _Oh gods, he's going to know...he's going to know as soon as he puts his mouth…_

"In me.” She grabbed his belt buckle. "Now."

She undid the belt and used her hands and feet to shove his pants down. He hooked his thumbs into his boxers and pushed them down his thighs.

He groaned as her hand slid up his length—she circled him with her fingers, and feeling him still semi-hard, she began to stroke him more firmly.

 _Too long, it's been too long…_

"What's…the rush," he gasped. "Haven't seen you in…frak, woman, a long time…"

She ignored him, not wanting to acknowledge that she was avoiding the swirling feelings of panic and anxiety in her stomach. She wanted him inside her, wanted to feel him, only him.

She felt him getting harder in her hand at long last. It had never been a problem for him before, but things were different now for her. Maybe they were for him too.

"You're so hard," she whispered against his open mouth, encouraging him. She felt heat searing through her at the groan he emitted at her touch. "Is this how much you missed me?"

 _Stay with me, Saul, and I'll stay with you._

She sat down on the cot behind them and stretched her body out on the blanket. She felt a warm blush across her cheeks. She didn't know why she was embarrassed. This was something she'd done uncountable times before with him, teasing him with the temptation of her body, showing him how much he turned her on.

She didn't want it to be different now. It couldn't be. He didn't deserve that.

"My gods," he breathed. He ran his hand over her bent knee, down the inside of her thigh. She shivered. "You're so frakkin' beautiful."

She smiled at the flutter it caused in her belly to hear those words from him, even after so many years. "C'mere," she beckoned, tugging on his hand. "Please."

He knelt at the side of the cot instead and pulled her leg aside, giving her a salacious grin. "Since when do we get to the main event without an opening act?"

 _Oh, gods, you can't…_

"No," she said, then took a deep breath, feeling tears prickle her eyes. "Please, I just want you inside me. It's been so long. And I just…"

 _You can't._

"Okay. " A note of disappointment was evident in his voice. Guilt fluttered in her abdomen as beckoned him upward. He followed her lead, settling between her legs. She reached between them— _just do it, just do it_ —and directed him inside her, her breathing ragged. She embraced him, her legs hooked around his waist.

 _You can do this. Do this for him._

He slid into her and he felt like Saul and sounded like him too, with his gravelly groan and the brush of his nose across her neck.

She shuddered. She couldn't help it. He began moving inside her, their bodies pressed together, and she began to feel panic rise within her almost immediately.

 _I want this so badly. Just let me have this. Please, gods, just let me have this._

"Look up at me," she hissed. "Look me in the eyes."

He listened to her, kissing her mouth hard, his tongue slipping between her lips. She kept her eyes open, and his face…

 _…damn them and what they did, frakking monsters, they took a piece of each of us, and we’ll never get them back…_

"Frak," she cried out, squeezing her eyes shut. Her heel hit his back with a thud. "Gods...son of a bitch."

She felt Saul pull away. "Ellen?"

She took a sharp breath, anger swelling within her. "I can't...I'm sorry, I'm tired, and I'm not sure I can…"

 _Did he take this away from you too?_

She tried not to cry, straining to keep her tears inside. Her pulse was pounding in her ears. She met his gaze, letting the concern in his expression ground her, reminding her who was here and who was not. Her breathing evened out as he stroked her hip.

"It's okay, Ellen. Relax," he whispered.

She nodded, giving him a small smile. She wondered if he could see the fear in her eyes.

"I love you," he murmured, pressing his forehead to hers and kissing her nose.

She slid her arms around his neck, pulling him closer, the weight of his naked body comforting and settling her. She took long, deep breaths as he kissed all around her face.

"I love you, too." She stroked the back of his head, its short hairs smooth under her fingers. "I love you so much. I missed you so much. Every day. Every minute. I was always thinking of you, Saul."

 _Every time he touched me I pretended it was you._

He turned on his side and pulled her to him, tugging at the heavy blanket that had slumped off of the cot. He covered them, tucking it around her body.

"I think we need some rest," he said. "I haven't slept in weeks. Never can sleep well without you next to me."

She sniffled and smiled at him, running her toes along his calf. "Well, I'm here."

He sighed deeply and held her close.

She slept just as well in his arms as in Laura's the night before.  



	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes we make mistakes when we think we're doing the right thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See Chapter One, but I’ll restate it here: [](http://meryl-edan.livejournal.com/profile)[**meryl_edan**](http://meryl-edan.livejournal.com/), [](http://larsfarm77.livejournal.com/profile)[**larsfarm77**](http://larsfarm77.livejournal.com/), [](http://tjonesy.livejournal.com/profile)[**tjonesy**](http://tjonesy.livejournal.com/), [](http://dashakay.livejournal.com/profile)[**dashakay**](http://dashakay.livejournal.com/) and [](http://somadanne.livejournal.com/profile)[**somadanne**](http://somadanne.livejournal.com/)... you all played an integral part in this section. Thank you for helping me.

_175th Day of the Cylon Occupation of New Caprica_

 _I can feel the tension building in the air like we're on the verge of something significant. Everything has been too quiet. Colonel Tigh has been released and there is little he'd like more than revenge upon those who tried to take away his dignity. Though I understand his anger, I'm concerned about his methods. Desperation can drive men beyond their moral compasses, can make the inexcusable seem justifiable._

 _I'm angry at those who have joined the New Caprica Police. There is no good that can come of the unification of Cylon and human. I wonder how it feels to wear their uniform, to take their orders, to turn against your own people under the guise of peace and justice._

 _There will be a day when they ask themselves if it was worth it after all._

"These are the surveillance pictures taken by the insurgents," Tory said, tossing photos onto two separate piles. Laura looked up from her journal. "I think we can match names to about fifty of these photos. But our best guess puts the total police force at around two hundred."

 _Two hundred traitors._

"Two hundred. I wouldn't have believed there'd be twenty people who would turn against their own kind. I want those names. I want the rest of the names."

 _I want to know every last one of them._

"It's tough. The Cylons are afraid the population will go after any human who joins the New Caprica Police."

"As well they should."

Laura ignored Tory's questioning look and pushed back from the table. "I'm headed back to the tent. Please let me know if you find out anything else."

Tory nodded as Laura slid on her coat and tucked her journal into it. "All right."

Laura left the tent, the cold wind momentarily taking her breath away. She inhaled the frigid air and began the walk to her tent.

She hadn't heard from Ellen in days, not since they'd shared drinks and a cot and probably too many intimate details about their lives. She'd heard from Chief that Saul had been released. He'd given her some of the more grim details about the state of the Colonel's condition. At least he's alive, Chief had said, and she'd agreed with him.

 _I don't know what Bill would do without him. When Bill comes back._

She knew Ellen was probably busy alternately attending to Saul's needs and celebrating his return. She didn't blame her for that. She'd be doing the same thing.

Laura pulled up her collar, her cheeks stinging from the cold. It was going to be a hard winter alone.

x x x x

Ellen was sitting at the table in their tent when she heard the explosion. It startled her out of a daydream, something about rolling hills with green grass upon them, the wind tousling her hair.

It was loud. It was terrifying. She'd heard explosions in the camp before, but this was different. Something horrible had happened.

She wondered whether Saul was the cause or the victim.

x x x x

The command came in a hushed tone in the early morning hours, interrupting Laura's dreams, so much so that when she opened her eyes to bright flashlights in her face, she couldn't figure out if she was still sleeping.

"Get up," she heard someone demand, a male voice, fairly young. She squinted in the bright light and shielded her face with her arm. "Don't make a sound."

Her heartbeat pounded in her ears.

 _It's all a dream...it has to be a dream._

x x x x

Ellen was out of breath from running through the camp. She'd run from the schoolhouse until she reached her tent and yanked the flap open. Saul was sitting at their table, bent over a steaming cup.

"Laura," she panted. "She's gone."

Saul turned to look at her. "Whaddya mean she's gone?"

"I went…" Ellen breathed deeply, trying to calm the twisting in her gut and catch her breath. "I went to the school to talk to her and they said she didn't show up this morning, that they sent someone over to her tent and couldn't find her. I went there myself. She's gone, and she didn't take anything with her, Saul. You know what's happened—"

"Now hold on a second, godsdamn it," he said harshly.

 _Just frakkin' listen to me for once._

"They took her, Saul," Ellen said, tears slipping down her cheeks. "They took her, I'm sure of it."

 _Godsdamn it, Laura, why weren't you more careful?_

x x x x

The walk to the detention center was silent and dark. The officers let Laura walk the path in front of them, the dirt tightly packed under her feet.

 _Nobody's awake. Soon the sun will rise, and people will wake up, and someone will notice I'm gone._

Laura's mind was racing. She knew it was a mode of distraction and accepted it as such, thinking about the schoolchildren gathering, about Maya and Isis arriving at the tent to find her absent. She wondered what they would think when they found her tent empty—she hated that idea, of someone discovering she had been taken. She didn't want to worry anyone, didn't need anyone worrying about her.

 _I can take care of myself._

They arrived at the front of the building and the iron gates squeaked in the silence; she'd never noticed that sound before.

Laura began to feel the first inklings of panic when they entered the detention center, though she tried not to show it. She walked the long hallway, listening intently for some signs of life, but heard none. Somehow, this quiet was infinitely more harrowing than the silence outside.

The guard standing watch inside the small, cement-walled cell to which she was led wore the same black mask as all the others.

 _New Caprica Police, those sons of bitches._

She couldn't see his eyes, but she could feel them following her as she entered the room and stood still. There was a gray jumpsuit folded neatly in the middle of the floor.

"We need your clothes."

She glanced at him questioningly and looked back down at the pile of clothing.

 _The frak you do._

"Either you take them off, or I'll—"

"I've got it," she interrupted. She hoped he could hear the warning in her voice and not the uncertainty.

He shifted his weight on his feet and watched her. She felt her stomach churn.

Her mouth was dry as she turned her back and pulled her shirt up over her head, exposing her back to the chill of the air and his prying eyes.

She bent down and picked up the jumpsuit.

"All of your clothes," he said sharply.

She started to turn to him, but stopped herself with a deep breath.

She reached behind her back and unfastened her bra, her throat constricting. She let it slip to the floor as goose bumps spread across her skin.

"Never thought I'd get to see the President naked."

x x x x

"Why were you looking for Laura Roslin?" Saul asked, interrupting Ellen's chaotic stream of thoughts. She wiped the tears off of her cheeks.

 _I need to calm the frak down._

Saul stood up and walked over to her. She looked at her feet, then back up at him.

 _I don't know why I was looking for Laura Roslin. I just was._

Ellen felt her stomach flutter at the inquisitive look in his eyes. "Why shouldn't I be?"

"Last I knew you two weren't on the best of terms." Saul ran his hand down her bare arm and entwined their fingers.

 _He's trying to comfort you. You don't deserve to be comforted._

Ellen pulled her hand away and folded her arms across her stomach.

"When you were in detention, we figured out we had something in common," she said, her voice wavering.

"Like what?"

"Isolation. Separation. Pain."

Saul let out a low laugh. "So you bonded with Laura frakkin' Roslin over how shitty this godsforsaken hellhole is."

Ellen glared at him, taking a deep breath. He really had no idea what she'd gone through when he was in there, no idea what Laura was going through with Bill, wherever he was, maybe dead for all they knew. His expression softened when he saw her glare. "About the condition of our lives, yes. Saul, you were gone. Bill is gone. We really didn't have anyone else to turn to who would understand what we were going through."

 _Alone. We were alone._

x x x x

The last things the guard took were her shoes and her glasses. She couldn't look him in the face. She merely closed her eyes as his hand brushed hers in exchange.

She could see outlines and vague details of her surroundings as she was guided to another cell.

The click of the door lock startled her, then made her only more frustrated.

She began to pace, the floor hard and cold under the soles of her feet. She looked at the small windows and back at the door, wringing her hands together, over and over.

 _There must be some way out of here._

x x x x

"I'm sorry," Saul said, his voice gruff. Ellen regretted unleashing her frustration on him. She needed him to listen, maybe even understand, in the most generic of terms, what had happened to her while everything was happening to him.

Ellen pulled him close, kissing his forehead. "Saul, what could you possibly have to be sorry about?"

"That I wasn't here for you."

She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him closer. "You were locked up. You were being tortured. I think that's a fair enough excuse for not being as attentive to your woman as usual."

He didn't laugh. She kissed his neck and rested her head against him. Her forehead brushed his beard, something she still hadn't gotten used to since he was released. He wore it like a badge, like it told the story of what he'd been through.

 _You can't break down, Saul. I need you to stay strong, as selfish as that may be._

"I haven't been here for you," he said. "Ever since I got out, I've been puttin' myself right back into the fray. We set off a bomb at the NCP graduation ceremony yesterday. They could come after me again if they wanted to."

 _Oh, gods. I don't want to think about it._

"But you're here now," she said, nuzzling him. "And I'm still really needy."

She felt his chuckle and she smiled against his skin.

x x x x

Laura had given up pacing—really, she'd worn herself out—and finally had sat on the floor, the cold of the cement chilling her body. It was an agonizing wait for daylight to come.

Daybreak brought the muted sound of someone's prayer that echoed down the hallway. It was monotonous and slightly calming until a distant, sharp scream overpowered it.

 _Stay calm._

The door creaked open, startling her. She glanced up to see one of the Cavils walking into the room.

 _Those motherfrakking Cavils._

She drew her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them.

"Welcome," he said, his smile broad. He made a gesture to the room. "I hope you've found the amenities to your liking so far."

She stared at him. "Do you have an airlock here?"

His laughter was contrived as he stepped closer to her.

"I see your humor is just as dry as mine. A little unsatisfied with your current condition, Laura?" he asked. "Nobody likes it here. If they did, what would be the point?"

She bit her tongue. She wouldn't give him the pleasure of a response.

"You do realize," he said, "that this is the cell we held your friend Colonel Tigh in. And actually…" He cringed. "I think you're sitting right where I stepped on his eye after we plucked it out of its socket."

A pang of nausea hit her. She stared at him and swallowed, her throat thick with bile.

"Don't look at me like that. _I_ didn't pluck it out. I could never do that to anyone."

"Of course not," she whispered angrily.

"I'm not going to have someone take one of yours, don't worry." He clasped his hands together and leaned closer. "Now, while you're sitting there pretending you're not intimidated, you're really thinking, 'What is it that they want from me? Why did those Cylons toss me in this nasty, dirty cell?'"

She attempted to read the expression on his face. It was so hard, the detail blurred from her lack of glasses, but if she tried...

"I'm here to tell you we're not really sure what we need from you yet," he said with an exaggerated sigh. She watched him shift on his feet and fold his arms across his chest. "Maybe you know a little about this whole…unfortunate insurgency situation. Maybe you know where some people are that we would _love_ to talk to. I guess that's what we're trying to figure out. What we need from you, and how we can go about getting it."

He crouched down to look her in the eyes.

"It might take awhile," he said with a chuckle. "But right now, all you've got is time."

x x x x

Saul's first kiss was soft, his lips brushing across hers tenderly, like he was testing to see if she was an apparition. She kissed him back more firmly, parting her lips, proving to both him and herself that this was real.

 _Touch me._

His hand swept across her cheek.

x x x x

Cavil reached over and cupped Laura's face, his palm surprisingly soft. She flinched and examined the blue depths of his eyes.

 _How can you look so human?_

She kept staring at him even as she heard the cell door open. "Good morning, gentlemen," he said, cocking his head to the side. "I'd like to introduce you to our guest."

"You motherfrakker," she growled between clenched teeth.

He gave her a contented smile and stood up. "More accurate than you'll ever know."

Laura looked behind him to see two men had walked into the cell, one wearing a black mask. She tried to focus her vision and distinguish the face of the other. Her heartbeat quickened when she couldn't.

 _Get closer so I can see who the frak you are._

She felt herself growing angrier, yet knew that her anger was just a cover for the fear growing within her. She stood up, casting a wary glare toward them.

Cavil turned away and walked toward the door. He patted the unmasked man reassuringly on the shoulder and leaned in, glancing back at her.

"Convince her she knows something."

 _Oh, gods._

Laura heard the door click shut and tried to steady her breathing as she stood her ground. The two men approached on either side of her and she took a sharp breath when she recognized the unmasked man—it was the Cylon she knew as Doral. The same one who tried to blow up _Galactica_ , the same one who masqueraded as human on _Colonial One_ while the worlds were going to hell.

The fluorescent light buzzed overhead.

x x x x

 _He's here. It's him._

Saul's mouth ignited her, his tongue searched her, his hands claimed her. Groaning into his mouth, Ellen clung to him, hissing out a breath as his hands rubbed her thighs, inching her skirt higher.

She put her hands on his chest and pushed him away hard. "I need you," she ordered, licking her lips. "Now."

 _The faster we do this, the less chance I have to think._

x x x x

"All right. Let's get this over with," Doral said, nodding in her direction. She resisted the urge to back up as they approached on either side of her; she had nowhere to go. Swallowing thickly, she felt her hands close into fists.

"If you touch me, I'll frakkin' kill you."

Doral let out a chuckle. "You'll frakkin' _kill_ me. Do you know how absurd you sound?"

 _They can't die. They just come back to life._

Laura blinked back tears of frustration. Her jaw set, she watched Doral as he drew near while the guard hung back. He stood in front of her, unwavering.

"You want the first kick?" Doral asked the guard, his voice pretentious, casual.

 _Oh my gods. Okay, take it easy. Don't show him you're afraid._

"I don't know." The young man's voice was uncertain. Laura averted her gaze to him, trying to appear unaffected despite the fear of possibilities growing within her. He seemed apprehensive.

 _Maybe he'll back down._

"You don't know _what_?"

"That...that's Laura Roslin, Sir."

She felt a lump rise in her throat. "You don't want to do this, do you?"

"Shut up," Doral snapped. He looked at the guard. "You'll do it because it's your frakkin' _job_."

"You don't have to do this," she repeated. She couldn't see his eyes, but she knew there was a human under that mask.

 _You're not like them. You're not a machine._

"Oh, for God's sake," she heard Doral huff. She kept her eyes on the young man shifting his weight beside her; the longer she looked at the guard, the more human she would seem. "I don't know why we even bother enlisting you _sensitive souls_ to help out around here."

"Frak you," she said, her voice low.

There was a swift intake of breath the instant before his fist connected with her stomach.

x x x x

Saul's hands slid up her sides and she shivered with the exquisite pleasure of his touch.

"Oh gods," Ellen breathed as she slid down onto Saul's length, slowly, so slowly, as he stretched her out. It burned—she ached around him and she gritted her teeth at the friction.

 _Maybe it should hurt. Maybe you deserve the pain._

Saul's hands clutched at her bare ass under her skirt and he groaned, pressing his body up into her. She responded with a soft moan and grabbed his hands, pushing them down to his sides and firmly holding them there. She began to ride him, harder, faster, her eyelids fluttering closed.

 _His hands and his sounds, gods, his sounds and his thrusts and his hands..._

x x x x

Laura struggled for breath. Doral's fist hit her side, knocking her off balance. She grabbed at him, catching his shirt in her fist and holding tight.

 _You're going down with me, you son of a bitch._

He grabbed her arm and yanked it away, his shirt ripping under her fingernails. The pleasure she took in the sound ended abruptly as he twisted her arm behind her back. She whimpered, the sharp sting searing her. She acquiesced, but he continued the slow twisting until he forced a cry past her lips.

 _Frak it hurts, stay calm, it hurts, stay calm, come on, stay calm._

"Get…down." The sole of his boot hit her calf. "Down on the floor."

Another twist of her arm and her knees hit the cement. The shock against her kneecaps rattled her and she sucked a sharp breath through her teeth, groaning.

"You don't have to do this," she whispered, tears welling up in her eyes. "You can stop him."

"Quite the contrary." The heel of Doral's boot ground into her lower back and he pushed down on her. Her arm screamed in agony as he forced her to the floor on her stomach. The cold of the floor chilled her through her jumpsuit, and she started to feel her airway constrict. Her chest tightened in panic and she felt unable to breathe.

 _Stay calm, breathe, you can do this, frak it Laura, calm the frak down. Breathe. Breathe._

"Come over here, I'm gonna give you an education."

"Frak you," she hissed.

"You curse too much." He gave her an emphatic shove with his foot. "Okay. Now, this is easy."

An unexpected kick hit her side and she immediately curled into a ball, as if on instinct. She felt throbbing where Doral's boot had connected with her body. "You just kick." Another kick, this time on her lower back, sent a jolt of pain rippling up her spine.

"Gods," she choked out. So many words in her head but she couldn't catch her breath...

 _I'm going to kill every last one of you when I get out of here, I swear to gods, I don't care, you frakking—_

Doral kicked her back again and all the air left her lungs. She tried to inhale deeply, the wheezing sound frightening her. "Come on, help a brother out. I'm feeling a little lazy."

"Frak," she heard the guard whisper.

Her body felt like it was on fire. She squeezed her eyes shut harder with a soft whimper and braced herself.

 _You can do this, you can handle this. You can do this._

x x x x

"Talk to me, damn it," Ellen breathed. She had to hear Saul's voice—feeling him, seeing him under her, wasn't enough to convince her he was real this time.

 _I've spent so much time pretending._

She twisted her hips, the angle hitting her just right as he slid into her again. She moaned and bit her lip.

"Did I ever tell you how glad I am I married you?"

His voice was soft. She stopped moving and looked at him, her chin quivering.

 _Gods, the last time he asked me that…_

"Not once," she whispered.

He shifted his wrists, still trapped in her grip, and she let them free. He traced his fingers along the tops of her thighs, over the plane of her stomach, his body suddenly still as he watched her shiver under his touch.

"I am thankful, every frakkin' day, that I married you. You're the first thing I think about when I wake up. The last thing I think about when I fall asleep."

He faltered for a moment, his jaw set. She could see the tear in his eye.

"Thinking of you got me through that hell—"

"Saul, I—"

"And I'd give everything I have just to have you in my life forever."

She couldn't speak, overwhelmed by the realization of the sacrifices he had made, she had made, they'd both made together.

"Me too." She leaned down to kiss him. "Anything. Everything."

x x x x

Laura heard the guard's whispered apology before his boot connected with her side, hard against her ribs. She cried out at the intense burst of pain and the fear that rippled through her.

 _Don't break—_

"I'm sorry...I'm sorry…"

Over and over he repeated it, like it made a difference to her. Like if he said it enough she'd forgive him. She could feel welts rising on her skin, pulsing with her heartbeat.

 _You can be as sorry as you want, but you're signing your death warrant._

"Quit apologizing," Doral snapped. "She's not doing you any favors by trying to kill you and your buddies every frakkin' day."

The guard's boot landed along her shoulder blade this time, harder. Over and over. She wasn't sure if he stopped apologizing or if she stopped hearing his words.

 _It has to end. It always has to end. Just a little bit more._

x x x x

"More," Ellen panted. "Come on, Saul."

Ellen rose over Saul and pushed her hand between her legs. She felt her body spark alive under her fingers, and she slid down onto him. He clutched at her ass and they found their rhythm easily, familiar and comfortable.

 _There it is..._

x x x x

"Do you think the ex-President has a nice ass?"

Laura's gut wrenched. The guard didn't respond to Doral's question. She could hear his exerted pants over her own breathing.

"What am I _thinking_?" Doral drawled. He sighed languorously. "How can you judge what you can't see?"

She heard footsteps approaching and she curled as tightly as she could into herself, her muscles searing with heat.

 _Just a little bit more._

Doral nearly lifted her off the ground when he yanked at the back of her collar. She landed on her back, gasping as she felt him grab the front of her jumpsuit and rip it open. She clutched at both sides tightly with her shaking fists, pulling them closed.

"No." The young guard's voice was sharp and panicked.

The light droned overhead, punctuated by her wheezing.

 _Don't. Not that. I need to get out. I need to get out._

She started crying, choked sobs that sent sharp jabs of pain through her abdomen. She couldn't hold them in any longer. Humiliation flushed her cheeks red.

"Then get to it." Doral nudged at her with the toe of his boot. She heard him walk away.

The next kick was swift and hard, the hardest of them all. A searing line of pain shot from her back down her leg.

"Gods." She embraced herself tightly, repeating it to herself.

 _Please, gods, Bill, somebody, please._

She heard Doral chuckle. "They're not helping you now, are they?"

 _Please._

The next kick left her breathless, a sour taste rising in her throat. She gagged on it through her tears.

"Where are they now?"

x x x x

Ellen gritted her teeth and felt a heated rush surge through her abdomen. Her body throbbed around Saul, her pulse quickening, inching ever closer to the sweet release she'd needed for so long.

"I'm gonna…"

She jerked her body against his, frakking him harder.

"Yeah, do it," Saul urged breathlessly. "Come on. Come on."

"Saul," she whimpered. "I'm sorry, I…oh, gods…"

"Just let go. Just let go."

x x x x

"All right, that's enough."

Laura lay still on the hard cement floor, feeling an anticipatory shudder.

 _I don't believe you._

x x x x

Ellen cried out, a wave of pleasure cascading up her body. "Gods, yes, yes, yes," she whimpered.

Saul groaned and thrust his body into hers, grinding his hips as his head tilted back.

He grabbed Ellen's ass with a loud groan, holding her down, grinding into her.

 _His hands digging into her flesh..._

She gasped and squirmed as she felt panic setting in. She tried to free herself from his grasp. "Let go...let go."

 _This is what he does, what he does..._

x x x x

The door slammed shut behind them and Laura remained on the floor, her hands clutched to her chest. She wanted to melt, to dissolve into the ground. She didn't want to leave a trace of this self behind for anyone to find.

 _It's over._

x x x x

 _Stop. Stop._

Saul grunted as he came with a forceful thrust, holding her body against him.

 _Frak you._

Ellen hit him in the face, her fist connecting with his bearded cheek.

She stared in disbelief as the tears began to fall.

x x x x

Laura ran her hands over her body—she was sticky with either sweat or blood, she couldn't tell which and she didn't care to look. Her body was throbbing, a pain more intense than she'd ever felt. She panted for air in a panic, her face wet with tears.

 _I can't breathe. Breathe. I can't breathe._

 _Breathe._

The desperate breath she finally managed made her crumple with a groan. A few more shallow draws of air and she felt herself relaxing. She wiped her face with the back of her hand.

Laura's eyes shifted to the hazy sunlight streaking across the cell. She took another deep breath and winced, then put her palms flat against the cement.

 _Get up. Get the frak up. Get up off the ground._

She panted and gradually pushed herself up to a sitting position. She bent her legs and wrapped her arms around them, biting her lip at the stinging pulse of her body.

She stared at the cell door, shaking.

 _I'll never tell him about this._

x x x x

Saul let go of Ellen and she slid off of his lap. She folded her arms across her chest and squeezed her eyes shut, her back turned to him.

"What the frak," he said angrily. She could hear the incredulity in his voice. "What the _frak_ was _that_?"

"I...I don't know," Ellen said, running her fingers through her hair.

 _I can't tell you. Not yet. Not now._

"What happened to you while I was in there?" Saul asked. She could hear him shifting on the cot.

"Nothing," she retorted angrily.

"Did you frak someone else?"

She stood motionless, his words ringing in her ears.

"Tell me."

 _I can't._   



	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes we make mistakes when we think we're doing the right thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See Chapter One, but specific thanks on this chapter go to [](http://meryl-edan.livejournal.com/profile)[**meryl_edan**](http://meryl-edan.livejournal.com/) and [](http://larsfarm77.livejournal.com/profile)[**larsfarm77**](http://larsfarm77.livejournal.com/).

The floor of Laura's cell grew colder as the night wore on. She stopped expecting food or a blanket. She stopped expecting to hear a voice from outside telling her it was all going to be all right, that someone was there to save her.

 _It's up to you to save yourself. It always has been._

But she never stopped expecting them to come back. She could still hear the echoes of her beating in her head. Her body ached, the muscles tight.

Whenever her eyes began to close, she pressed a newly formed bruise as hard as she could, the pain a reminder to stay awake.

 _I don't need to sleep._

She sat with her back to the cement wall. It chilled her body through her jumpsuit. She looked through the slatted window at the top of her cell and into the darkness of the night sky, the moons only beginning to rise.

 _Where are you?_

x x x x

Ellen stood at the entrance of their tent and watched as both moons began to cross the sky. The air was cold, but she couldn't stop staring. Something about the expanse of the stars felt calming, providing a moment's respite.

 _Maybe that's why he always left._

She hadn't answered Saul's question.

 _Did you find someone else?_

She didn't know how to answer it.

He, as always, had conceded his loss. He'd rolled over under the blankets and had given up on getting an answer from her.

 _This is it. This is us._

No matter what path she took, she always ended up back in the same place.

 _If only you knew what I went through for you._

x x x x

The creak of the cell door woke Laura, her cheek pressed against the floor. Her first instinct was to clamber away from whatever was entering. But then, as she looked up and saw who it was, she decided not to give him the pleasure of seeing her scramble.

She remained on the floor and tried to conceal her shivering. Cavil pulled a chair in behind him, then turned it around and sat on it backward with a sigh.

"Gaius Baltar got wind of you being in here," Cavil said, his voice reluctant. "So he said to treat you nicely. Too bad we didn't get the message earlier. My apologies."

 _I don't believe you._

She lifted her body with the help of one aching arm and stared at him.

 _It's so hard to read what's going on in your head. Maybe it's better that way._

Cavil folded his arms across the back of the chair. "So I guess what I'm here to tell you is that my Number Five most certainly won't be around for any more engaging conversation. And there are two NCP officers outside your door with direct orders from the"—he put his fingers in the air, making quotation marks—" _President_ , not to let anyone harm you."

She took a shaky breath to compose herself for her response.

"And surely you're obeying every order the _President_ gives you," she said, surprised at how strong her voice sounded.

"Are you questioning my respect for authority?"

"I've had a lot of time to think since my beating."

His smile widened.

 _You sick frak._

"Oh? And what did you think about? Mind indulging me?"

"I'm of the understanding that Cylons speak of the one true God. Doesn't your God speak of peace?"

"Don't yours?" he asked, his voice low. "Seems to me the gods—this Cylon God, your gods, whatever the frak people are believing in these days—are speaking, and nobody's listening. Luckily, we all follow the same doctrines when it comes to certain guiding principles in our lives."

"Like?" Her tone was bitter.

"Forgiveness," Cavil said with a smirk. "Forgiveness for our sins."

"Frak you," she spat, anger immediately welling inside her.

Cavil chuckled. "You have no idea how much I'd enjoy that."

Laura's eyes shifted to the door, her growling stomach roiling.

"Frankly," Cavil added, "I think forgiveness is for the weak."

 _You don't know how much I agree._

"Gaius frakkin' Baltar," Cavil said, his eyes drifting lower on her body. She glared at him. "What a pity we didn't get more time together, Laura."

"Get out."

"Oh, good. Exuding the authority you don't even have. See, this is exactly the type of behavior Baltar propagates with his wishy-washy philosophies on treating the prisoners fairly."

"I want him out," she said, more loudly. She watched guard step into the doorway and hover just inside.

 _Gaius is finally good for something._

"It was lovely," Cavil said, standing up and giving her a slight bow. "I hope those bruises heal up nicely. You'd have quite a bit of explaining to do to the Admiral. Oh," he said with a low, exaggerated laugh, "that's right, he's _not here_."

She watched as he exited with the officer. She suddenly felt calm, her breathing paced, as she stared at the door in front of her.

 _When I get out, there'll be hell to pay._

x x x x

Ellen woke in the morning and turned toward Saul, the warmth of his body comforting.

She ran her fingers along his jaw and across his lips. She was relieved to see she hadn't left a mark on his face.

 _Somehow, we keep on moving forward._

He stirred and she tentatively put her hand on his chest, waiting for a response.

"Morning," he grumbled. She loved the sound of his voice in the morning, right as sleep was wearing off.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, sliding her leg over his and snuggling closer. She kissed his shoulder. "I'm sorry."

He covered her hand with his, his eyes still closed.

"I know," he said, his chest rising and falling under their clasped hands. "I am, too."

x x x x

Seeing Gaius Baltar walk into her cell made Laura simultaneously furious and hopeful.

Her anger won over as he offered her a chair and tried to excuse away the fact that the Cylons with which he was so eagerly collaborating had beaten her in that very cell.

She didn't trust him at first, wary of him until he offered her glasses to her. Putting them on, observing her prison, and seeing the desperate look in his eyes made her even more irate.

Then, as quickly as her anger had spiked, the news of the suicide bombing made her nearly as queasy as the beating she'd taken from Doral.

 _Saul must be feeling desperate to be heard. He must be desperate to make an impact, desperate for revenge on the Cylons._

She was too, of that she was sure. But she wasn't the one telling citizens to strap bombs to their chests.

"Desperate people take desperate measures."

She tried to stand her ground, to make an excuse for the insurgency that she, at the core of its existence, believed in. Her beaten body still ached and she knew she would bear the evidence of what the Cylons had done to her for quite some time, in ways, the rest of her life. But there was no way she could defend sacrificing another life for a cause. She could barely look Gaius in the eyes as she shook her head.

He rambled on, about the NCP, about trying to protect the order amid the chaos.

She felt a surge of anger at the mention of the police and nearly leapt at him as she let loose.

"By arresting innocent people in the dead of night, detaining them indefinitely without charge, torturing them for information—"

"Nobody has been tortured." Gaius sounded near a mad panic, like he was trying to convince himself that such atrocities weren't possible.

 _You know that's a lie, you self-righteous bastard, you motherfrakkin' son of a—_

"Tell that to Colonel Tigh."

 _Don't even admit it to yourself, Laura..._

"Nobody has been tortured."

 _His was worse than anything you've endured._

In his eyes she saw a new, frightened madness she'd not seen in him before. He'd changed. The occupation was taking its toll on his sanity; she could nearly see it slipping away as he requested her shoes, obeying the dictates of his conscience.

 _Denial is merely a coping mechanism._

Laura's clothes were tossed at her through the open cell door, then her shoes, skipping one at a time across the cement floor like dice across a gaming table.

The door was left open. She eyed her clothes, then the door, then moved closer to them, keeping an eye out for anyone making sudden moves.

Picking up her bra and sweater, she walked over to the door and closed it, leaving it cracked slightly, then turned her back and started undressing.

There was no one awaiting her release—it was done quietly, and she rather preferred it that way. Her body was aching, the bruises fresh. She exited the detention center perimeter. The frigid air tingled on her heated cheeks.

She held her head up and walked home slowly through the perfectly aligned rows of gray tents, the ground solid under her feet.

x x x x

Days passed without incident and Saul and Ellen didn't speak about the night she hit him. She knew they often dealt with their fights in this way—pretending they never happened until sometime in the future when the same issues reared their ugly heads.

Cavil had instilled just enough fear into her that she felt like she needed to return to the detention center to see him, to ensure Saul's continued freedom. It was an unspoken agreement, but he didn't seem surprised when she entered his apartment.

She made herself believe it was the least she could do. Maybe it was penance for everything she'd done over the years. Maybe this was the only way she could keep Saul in her life.

 _Give yourself up._

She felt like she was stuck in an endless cycle as she headed for the showers afterward. It was all routine for her. At this point, her actions were nearly mechanized. Kiss Saul goodbye, head to the detention center. Frak a Cylon, leave, wash it all away, pretend it didn't happen, kiss Saul hello when he arrived back home. He didn't ask her any questions, she didn't offer any answers. They existed in the same space, separate as they were when he was away on _Galactica_ , when she wanted nothing more than to have him next to her.

 _Now he's here, and we've never felt so distant._

Ellen entered the shower facility and found a bench in the curtained-off changing area, peeling off her clothes. She glanced over the marks on her body, some scratches fresh, some bruises faded. She heard water running. Someone was taking a shower, but she didn't much care.

She walked into the shower area and her eyes were drawn to a woman's form, her pale lower back patterned with deep purple bruises. Her long, dark hair was wet and clung to her shoulders as she stood, head bowed, the water streaking down her body and swirling down the drain.

In days past, before all of this, Ellen would have been embarrassed, even ashamed to bear witness to a woman who had been so horribly abused. Her eyes followed the line of bruises over the curve of the woman's buttocks and down her legs. She breathed shallowly, afraid of being detected.

She walked up to a shower head two spaces down and turned the dial to turn on the water, hoping for hot, finding it lukewarm yet again.

She glanced over at the woman one more time and their eyes met unexpectedly.

 _Laura._

Ellen's stomach lurched.

 _Oh my gods, what did they do to you? What did you do?_

Laura's gaze moved down her body, taking in the damage Cavil had left behind. Ellen averted her eyes and felt them fill with tears. Peripherally, she saw Laura turn away from her.

Thus began her ritual, and it was always the same.

x x x x

Ellen had seen her in the showers. Had seen her naked body, had seen the bruises she knew were coloring her back, a horrifying portrait of what she'd endured.

Laura felt exposed, like she'd just revealed her darkest secrets against her own will. She'd known there was a certain risk showering during the daytime, but she didn't have a choice. If there was any way she'd go out at night before this all happened, there was no way she'd do it now.

The water felt good on her muscles, and she was not going to show up to the school looking like she'd been through the wringer.

 _But Ellen. Why Ellen, of all people..._

She had managed, in the days since her detention, to box up her feelings about the entire incident and put them away somewhere deep inside just to survive. She still saw the bruises when she looked at her body in the lamplight before sleeping; she still felt the burning ache of the depth of her injuries, but she had pushed away her feelings about how she'd acquired them. She knew it was what she did when coping with anything painful—put it away, locked it up, forgot about it as much as she could.

But now that Ellen had seen what had happened to her, her body nearly broken—who knew who she'd tell about it. She might tell Saul. She might tell Bill.

And Bill couldn't know.

 _He can't ever know._

Laura Roslin, ex-President, had been beaten and didn't fight back hard enough.

 _Obviously couldn't defend herself. Obviously needs to be taken care of._

The weaker side of her, the part she was so good at repressing, wanted to slip into her tent and hide away until every bit of her was healed. But the resilient part of her, the part that nearly always prevailed, pressed her to take action. All she wanted to do was exact some sort of revenge upon those who hurt her.

 _And Ellen. And Saul. Now I know how they feel._

She wanted the Cylons to regret the day they landed on New Caprica; in fact, she knew they needed to, to prevent this endless game of cat and mouse.

And then there was Gaius... Gaius frakkin' Baltar, who let it all happen in the first place. There would be a special place in hell for him.

Her body was still aching as she made her way down the stairs into the underground bunker for the first resistance meeting since her release. It had seemed like the right thing to do, the only thing to be done. It was a familiar crew sitting around the table, blue ceramic cups set in front of them, a familiar drink for a familiar scene. She took a cup from Tyrol and drank half of it before she sat down.

There were no questions asked about what had happened to her in detention. These were gruesome secrets best kept. But she made it clear to Sam and Chief, as their eyes were transfixed upon her, that she would take an exquisite joy in killing some Cylons as retribution.

It was unrealistic, she knew, to expect herself to heal entirely from what had happened. It would always be a part of her, just like the attacks, just like her cancer. It was always there—sorrow, hopelessness, fear of its reoccurrence.

She merely tucked away as much of that emotion as she could and kept on moving forward, supported instead by her desire for vengeance and the hope that somehow still existed—the part of her that still believed Bill was coming back.

It was easier that way.

x x x x

Ellen had been thinking about Laura since they'd seen each other in the showers. It had been shocking to see Laura covered in bruises; she was fearful of what had happened to her in detention, but it wasn't her business to ask, no matter how close she thought they'd become.

As she watched Saul trying to affix the gauze patch to his face, Ellen couldn't help but feel guilty. She had someone to come home to and to comfort her, even though he didn't even realize what was going on behind his back. Saul would hold her through the night and make her feel safe. She knew, as long as she gave in to Cavil's requests, Saul wouldn't be taken.

 _It's a small price to pay._

Laura didn't have that. She was still alone, waiting for a Viper to streak across the sky, a theatrical announcement that Bill was back to save them all. Laura still had to sleep alone, to eat alone and to walk alone through the camp, always looking over her shoulder.

Ellen wished there was something she could do, but as she watched Saul, still struggling, she realized he needed her more than Laura did. She couldn't provide for both. She was already giving so much of herself.

 _It's okay. We have different roads to travel._

Ellen walked up to Saul and he didn't seem to notice her. He merely focused on the mirror in front of him—the one she hadn't looked in for so many weeks for fear of what she'd see on her own face.

 _Maybe I should be honest with him about everything._

It's what she'd wanted from the beginning when they settled on New Caprica. Honesty, trust. She'd let it fall apart as easily as it did before.

 _You always do this._

She just hoped he'd understand why she did what she did.

"I want you to know that I would do anything for you..."

The way he looked at her made her uneasy, as if he knew she was about to reveal something hurtful. She knew the look too well.

 _I don't love you any less…_

Galen burst into their tent in a frenzy, a piece of paper clutched in his hands, interrupting the confession she was about to make.

 _Godsdamn it, Galen Tyrol._

Galen's frightened tirade was a blur to her and she only heard certain words and phrases as her heartbeat raced. He called the paper a death list and said Cally was on it. It was no surprise that more people were going to die; she wasn't nearly as horrified as she thought she should be. Saul wasn't on the list; at first she felt guilty but it rapidly dissipated into comfort.

She scanned the names quickly, past Cally's name, down the lists of people deemed worthy enough to be executed. She saw a few others she recognized and passed over with an unaffected stare until one name in particular made her lose her breath.  



	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes we make mistakes when we think we're doing the right thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See Chapter One. Everybody _frakkin’_ rocks. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Laura was never more happy to see Tom Zarek than when he boarded the truck and sat down beside her.

There was something about sitting by someone she knew in a truck full of strangers that made her feel falsely at ease. The panic that had hit her when she'd seen the masked NCP officers enter the school had nearly made her vomit. She'd barely kept it together, knowing her eyes betrayed her fear.

She'd heard them make their demands to her and kept her appearance calm. She'd reassured the children around her that she'd be back soon, even as her sore muscles began to throb again, a phantom pain.

 _I still have those bruises. I won't let you hurt me again._

She'd set her resolve and held her head high as she was led with a group of others to the truck. It was then she started shaking, clinging tightly to the wooden bench. She hated feeling afraid again, hated feeling powerless. She knew wherever they were going couldn't be good.

Tom cracked a joke and she smiled, an honest to gods smile, and for a brief moment she felt like things might just turn out for the better.

The road was bumpy and she watched as their transport moved away from the city.

 _Somehow, some way, maybe they'll turn out for the better._

x x x x

 _I'm frakking screwed._

Ellen sat on the stairs of the long-abandoned dance floor. She watched clouds pass overhead, the sky turning crimson with the sunset.

 _This is it, then._

The sex wasn't enough for the Brother Cavil anymore. It never was enough. It was merely a ploy, a means to an end. First it was to release Saul, then it was to keep him free, and now it wasn't enough to keep him safe.

 _I want a specific place, I want a specific time for a very high-level meeting of the insurgency leadership..._

Cavil wanted her to turn on her own people and knew she would do it to save the life of the man she loved.

Cavil didn't know love. His motions were expressionless, his actions selfish and sadistic. When she looked into his eyes, when they spoke or when they frakked, she saw no emotion, no empathy. He wanted what he wanted and he knew how to get it. She didn't understand what would make a man— _he's not a man, he's a machine_ —so inherently cruel.

What he did know about love was that people would do nearly anything for the people they loved, and he effortlessly exploited it. He knew she would do anything for Saul—frak, she'd already given her body and a chunk of her spirit.

 _Might as well give it all._

She knew where the meetings of the insurgency were held, usually when they were held. It would be so easy to tell Cavil where and when to find them.

The idea made her sick.

She stayed on the stairs until the sky turned dark, the orange light from the fires lighting the city until it glowed, hiding the stars and feigning warmth.

 _It's getting cold._

x x x x

Laura was becoming convinced that death didn't want her after all. On this occasion, she'd literally tumbled out of its way unscathed, down a rocky hill, an aching salvation.

Her heartbeat was rapid as she caught her breath. She'd saved Tom, an impulse move, grabbing him and dragging him with her. He was thankful, expressing his gratitude with an off-color joke about women throwing him down. She barely listened but found herself laughing, partially in reaction to the sharp pain she was feeling from the bruises she already had being battered again by her fall.

Then she heard Chief, and saw Chief. Everything stopped then.

"We're goin' home. Admiral Adama's on his way. We're gettin' off this rock and goin' back to _Galactica_."

 _Oh, my gods, I never ever thought I'd hear those words._

She looked to the sky, silently thanking the ship she couldn't yet see for the promised rescue.

x x x x

 _I want you to know that I would do anything for you..._

Ellen grabbed the map and tucked it into her pants. It was a split-second decision that should have sent her stomach twisting at its implications, yet she for some reason she felt relief that she'd happened upon the information so easily.

It seemed so perfect—the timing of her entry into the tent, the way Saul handed the paper to her. It was like it was meant to be, so easy she could hardly believe it.

Saul was trusting of her, not a worry in his heart.

 _You never should have trusted me so much._

Nobody was watching. The small part of her that hoped they'd catch her in the act was overwhelmed by the larger part exulting that she'd just retrieved the information that was going to save her husband's life.

She walked the darkened path toward the detention center. She knew it was past curfew, but didn't care. They could pick her up, detain her, interrogate her, whatever they wanted to do. Maybe it would be preferable to die at the hands of machines anyway.

The Centurions let her pass without question.

She slipped past the large metal doors and walked down the long hallway. Her body reacted as it always did when she approached his door, but she reassured herself with the fact that this time would be different.

 _Instead of my body, he'll take the lives of others._

She knocked on the door and when Cavil opened it, she gave him a nervous smile.

"Back for more?" he asked, beckoning her in.

She bit her cheek hard as she walked past him, her mouth dry. She turned to him and pulled the map out from her waistband, her fingers shaking.

"Here's your frakkin' intelligence," she spat, tossing the folded paper in his direction. Cavil raised his eyebrows, then bent down and picked up the map.

He approached until he was standing inches away from her. She could feel his heat. It made her nauseated as she looked into his eyes.

"How'd you get it?" he asked. "The twist or the swirl?"

She slapped him. Instead of flinching, he smiled with a chuckle.

 _I hate that sound the most._

He unfolded the map and she looked away as he scanned it.

"Thanks for the invitation," he said. "I'll come bearing gifts."

"I've done what you requested," she whispered, her eyes stinging. "Now leave us the _frak_ alone."

"You'd better make sure Saul stays home," Cavil mused. "And I'd highly recommend he consider a different career path. You know, one that doesn't include _insurgency_."

"There's only an insurgency because we're under a hostile occupation," she said, feeling the overwhelming urge to hit him harder. She looked into his eyes. "You could have left us alone on this planet. Look at the mess you've all caused, and for what? Some sort of revenge?"

"We'll live in peace soon," he said. "Just have to get a few antagonists out of the way first."

"You can't force peace."

"Oh, but it's so fun to try."

He brushed her shoulder as he walked past her. She swallowed the lump in her throat.

"Can I go?" she asked, her voice hoarse.

"Unless you'd like to stay," he said. His tone made her sick.

She didn't look back when she left. It was the last time she'd have to hear his voice.

x x x x

Suddenly, time was flying, humanity's exodus impending. Laura felt unprepared, yet she'd never felt more ready for something to happen. She could feel the anticipation thrumming in her body, an energy she couldn't shake, no matter how much she tried to relax.

 _I'm ready, Bill. We're ready._

The resistance meetings had gotten more intense, delving into specific details of how exactly to get thousands of citizens safely off the planet. It was a tall order, the scope of it leaving her head spinning. She talked as if she had complete faith in the plan, but when it came down to it, she knew some people would never leave the planet's surface.

 _Desperate people take desperate measures._

She had explained to Sam the importance of Maya and Isis in exceedingly specific terms. He needed to believe her, and he accepted her insistence with a curious look in his eyes.

And then there was Ellen—Laura hadn't spoken to her and wondered how she'd taken the news of the Fleet's return. She had to be just as excited as Laura was to escape. It was a reward well earned for the both of them. She had the urge to go see her after the meeting, just to see how she'd been over the weeks they'd lost touch.

 _Maybe we'll end up getting along once we get shipside._

x x x x

The first person Ellen saw as she was dragged into their underground bunker was Laura, though Saul's name was the first that escaped her lips.

"We need to talk."

Laura tilted her head at Connor's demand, her brow furrowed.

"What is this?" Laura asked, looking over at Saul.

 _Oh, gods, I'm sorry...I'm sorry..._

Ellen forced herself to look at him as he stood, speechless in his confusion and flinching in instinctive disapproval of the way Connor jerked at her arm.

Saul was still. "Everybody but Anders and Connor get the frak out."

Things were happening so quickly her mind could barely keep up.

 _Maybe it's better this way._

"Colonel Tigh—" Laura began.

"You too," he snapped gruffly. "This doesn't involve you."

Ellen bit the inside of her lip at the flash of concern that crossed Laura's face. Laura hesitated, then walked past her, putting her hand on her arm.

"You know where to find me," she said. Ellen could see the uncertainty in her eyes.

Ellen could only manage a nod as she blinked away tears.

 _If only you knew._

x x x x

There's a frantic desperation that arises from within when one is attempting to postpone the inevitable. It starts as a spark of hope, deep inside, that somehow it'll all work out. That in a whirlwind of ideas followed by a rush of words, you'll manage to say something, anything that will help you save yourself.

Ellen knew it was false, this sense of possibilities beyond the fate she knew she deserved. Yet she let herself believe that somehow she could talk her way out of this one like she'd talked her way out of so many things before.

The temporary solace this provided—no matter how disillusioned she was—was like putting a butterfly closure on the tear in her heart. She was bleeding out. She could feel her life leaving her already, sliding through her fingers. It was not a question of if, but of when and how.

 _And who._

She sat by herself, listening to Sam hiss at Saul, his voice rising on the most painful of words.

 _There was nothing I could do._

It still echoed in her head even though she'd given up trying to convince anyone that she did what she had to do to save Saul's life. Her knee-jerk lies, hasty explanations and earnest excuses were not enough to convince anyone that her traitorous actions were justified. Saul had stared at her in disbelief. She could nearly see his heart breaking.

She would make him understand.

 _It won't matter, but I'll make him understand._

That was all that mattered.

She'd tell him everything.

x x x x

They sat next to each other on the unfinished wooden bench, underground, alone.

She told him she'd done it all for him; it was as honest as she'd ever been with him, really, though she could think of dozens of times before when she'd done something only for him, to keep him, to show him that she loved him. He kept telling her he knew, but she wasn't sure he did. He was shaking when he told her everything would be all right, because Saul Tigh was a man of his word, and he wasn't used to lying to her.

She told him everything. Not looking for pity or a way out, not trying to hurt him or make him think badly enough of her that taking his next steps would be easy. He needed to understand how much she loved him, that she would do anything for him.

 _Did I ever tell you how glad I am I married you?_

"I didn't want anybody to be killed."

 _I was only trying to save you, to save us._

He gave the cup to her because she asked him for it. She accepted the cup because he gave it to her. It was easier for him this way; it was easier for her.

The blue ceramic was cool in her hand.

 _I'll save it for a special occasion._

She looked into his eyes and she wasn't afraid. For the first time in a long time, she wasn't afraid.

The liquid scorched her throat, the bitter aftertaste telling. It was as easy as that, the easiest thing she'd ever done. Earnest truths he needed to hear slipped past her lips as easily as the tears down her cheeks, but she was tired, so tired of all of it.

He felt so warm and strong, so comfortable, and she closed her eyes to the world because there was nothing else worth seeing.

"Shoulda listened to you, Saul. Shoulda stayed on _Galactica_."

 _All I wanted was you._

He told her not to worry, just to go to sleep, his arm wrapped tightly around her. It was all she wanted to do. What sweet relief it would be from everything falling down around her.

 _It's okay. I just need to sleep._

x x x x

Laura hastily wrapped her journals in a brown cloth and tied them together. She slid them into her coat and fastened it as the sounds of the battle raged overhead.

She couldn't take much; she'd known this from the beginning. Only what she could carry in her hands.

She gave one last look at the space she'd called home. This space _they'd_ called home.

In the trunk was the dress. In the corner was the cot. On the table were two cups, waiting to share another meager breakfast on a lazy morning where reality existed only beyond the canvas walls.

She would go back to her ship. It would take her to him.

"It's gonna be okay," she whispered.

x x x x

The rumble of _Colonial One_ 's takeoff was jarring. Laura had almost forgotten what being airborne felt like—the upward lift, the split second in which her stomach flipped before the craft's stabilization system kicked in.

She walked to the window when the shaking stopped and looked down at the land below. The river wound through the camp out to the lake, surrounded by the mountains she remembered hiking back when things were good.

There were dark, still forms on the ground too, though she had to squint to see them as the ship rose. She knew what they were, but looked upward before thinking further.

 _You're leaving it behind._

There was no celebration aboard _Colonial One_ upon breaching New Caprica's atmosphere. It was rightfully morose, quiet and still as she watched the familiar passage of stars from what used to be her desk.

Her eyes lowered to her clothes, dusty and torn. She needed to shower before Bill saw her.

The head on board was too clean, too sterile. She undressed without looking in the mirror.

 _You're leaving it behind._

She watched the dirty water swirl down the drain, ruddy water dulling the white shower base beneath her feet.

 _Once the bruises are gone, only the memories will remain._

x x x x

There had been more sadness in the next few hours. The census had been done upon the Fleet's reunification. Tory looked broken when she reported back that Maya and Isis had not made their ship. The news unsettled Laura, as much as it could. Nothing seemed to faze her for the time being, not even the death of a close friend or the fact that they'd just lost Isis.

 _Beautiful, mysterious Isis._

Laura had moved beyond the ability to be broken. She had acknowledged their deaths with calm and simple acceptance.

 _This is bigger than us. This is life._

She'd told Tory that and immediately felt the need to see Bill. She'd waited long enough.

Laura hoped things on _Galactica_ had settled down so her arrival would be less chaotic. She had Tory arrange a transport, saying she needed a meeting with the Admiral. It felt strange to call him that. She wondered if he was anticipating seeing her, or what he expected to see when she arrived. She wondered if he'd look different and if she would be able to detect the grief she knew he was harboring. She would see it in his eyes, if anything.

 _It was always in his eyes._

He had to have missed her as much as she missed him.

This quick journey looked the same as always when she gazed out the Raptor's window. Darkness and stars, a sea of ships surrounding their anchor.

 _Galactica_ had never seemed so majestic.

They landed on the hangar deck and she felt nervous, tapping her fingers anticipatorily atop her knees.

The Raptor door opened and Bill was there to greet her. Her heart fluttered at the sight of him—her lip quivered in reminder of how close she had been to never seeing him again.

He smiled broadly when their eyes met. She resisted the urge to run up to him, to throw her arms around him and kiss his soft, full lips and bury her face in his neck.

 _He's Admiral here._

"It's good to see you, Laura," he said as she stepped down from the Raptor.

 _His ship, his hangar deck, his formality._

"It's good to see _you_ ," she repeated, smiling.

His hand was hesitant as he turned and placed it lightly on the small of her back. She felt herself flinch, then took a deep breath and widened her smile at the warmth of his palm.

"Care to join me for dinner?" he asked. They walked away from the bustle of the deck and into the even more crowded bustle of the hallway.

"Only if it's somewhere I can kick off my shoes."

"You never used to wear shoes in my quarters," he said. "I don't think that much has changed."

x x x x

They ate at his table, something she'd always taken for granted. Laura was thankful that _Galactica_ had stored some reserves of fresh food from New Caprica, but she knew it wouldn't last long. They'd soon be dining on the usual reconstituted military rations.

Both of them remained silent for most of their meal. She watched him chew and tried to decipher the thoughtful expression he directed at his plate.

The quiet was a welcome change and always felt so comfortable with him.

"How are Saul and Ellen?" she asked, sitting back in the chair. She put her fork and knife down as he looked up at her sharply, like she'd drawn attention to something important. She gave him a quizzical look, uneasiness settling in.

He put his utensils down and his gaze softened. "Saul's all right."

She kept his gaze and was nearly afraid to ask the question on the tip of her tongue. As if he read her mind—which she was sometimes convinced he could—he answered her question for her. "Ellen didn't make it."

The words hit her hard and she blinked.

"What...what do you mean, she didn't make it?"

 _Of course she made it. How could she have not—_

"Off the planet. She didn't make it."

Laura's stomach tightened into a painful knot. In an instant she was angry, confused, and overwhelmed by his words.

 _Ellen didn't make it._

"How...Bill, how could this happen? She's the wife of the XO, for frak's sake. Are you sure?"

"Saul told me. They couldn't find her. Cylons might have…"

He stopped short. She was sure it was because he knew she didn't need to hear his theories on what exactly the Cylons did to people. She knew it better than him.

 _Oh, gods, Ellen..._

Her mouth fell open and she shook her head in disbelief. "I saw her right before we all...she seemed fine. I don't understand...Bill, something's not right here."

Laura's tears began to fall as she stammered over her words.

 _Something's not right here. Something's not right._

Bill stood up and walked over to her. He took her hand, pulling her up into his arms. She felt stiff, her limbs heavy, her head faint.

"Saul's doing all right," he said, tightening his embrace.

"At least one of them is," she answered hoarsely.

His hand slid under her chin, tilting her head upward. She tried not to look into his eyes. She wasn't ready for him to see how much she was hurt, not at that moment, not like that.

"I don't know what happened to you down there—"

"Down there," she said, her voice wavering. She slid her arms around his waist. He felt good, solid, strong, like he always had. "We lost thousands of people is what happened to me down there. Ellen was one of them. Gods, all she…all we went through."

 _You have no idea what we went through._

She felt him take a deep breath. She pressed her cheek against his chest, her throat aching as she tried to stop her tears.

"Every day I wanted to be down there with you," he murmured into her hair. "I'm sorry I wasn't there."

Her breath was shaky as she calmed herself; he planted kisses atop her head.

"You did what you had to do," she said. "We did what we had to do."

x x x x

Their kiss was long and slow, his tongue familiar in her mouth. She took comfort in it and in every sensual memory that his body invoked as he held her.

 _Tickling behind his ear makes him moan, your thigh against his cock makes him kiss you harder, and he loves it when you nibble his lip._

She'd gone over these, time and time again, when she was alone down on that rock, pushing away the darkness.

He plucked free the buttons of her shirt and shed it for her. She kept her eyes closed and felt the slightest tingle of pain as his fingers pressed into her bare back, sliding up to undo her bra.

She faced him and kissed him harder when it hurt, her fingers tugging at the back of his hair.

 _I just won't turn around._

She knew the most incriminating evidence of what had happened was still fading across the muscles of her back, and she didn't want him to see it.

 _He doesn't have to see it._

She yanked up his tanks, kissing him more urgently, only stopping to pull them over his head. Her mouth searched his as she tugged at his pants and boxers until he removed them at her insistence. She was desperate, increasingly more so, to get him on top of her, to get him inside of her, to grab him and pull him close and feel the warmth of his naked body.

"Gods, I missed you," he said gruffly, his hands in her hair.

She hummed into his kiss, pulling him toward his rack. The sound of his voice made her twitch in anticipation. "I missed you too," she breathed.

His hands slid down over her ass and squeezed it. "I missed this, too," he teased as he kissed her jaw.

She felt her body tense up at his touch and she immediately pulled his hands away. He turned to look at her and she let out a breathless laugh.

 _Don't act like anything's wrong._

"Let's lie down," she said, her smile illusory, kissing his lower lip, nudging his mouth.

In his rack, his touch was light, almost too reverent as he removed her pants and underwear. She breathed deeply to calm the nervousness swirling in her stomach. She pretended his fingers didn't linger across the sparse yellowing bruises on her skin.

 _Maybe it's dark enough with only the light of the lamp._

Bill took her with his hands and his mouth, reading her body like he was memorizing it. He made her come without much of an effort, the strength of her orgasm surprising her. Her back arched as she cried out, gripping his hair as she felt her orgasm roll over her, over and over. Relaxing into the sheets, she heard his contented growl against her skin.

She grasped at his shoulders, pulling at the muscles that met his neck. "Bill, up here. Come up here and kiss me."

He crawled up her body, kissing his way up her sides, lingering where she wished he wouldn't.

 _He's not kissing the bruises._

His mouth found hers and it was gentle, so gentle. She lost herself in it.

"I was so worried," he began, his fingers brushing her cheek.

"Mmmm, don't," she whispered. "Not now."

She wrapped her legs around him and encouraged him with a lift of her hips. He looked into her eyes and she took him in with a moan until he met the warmth coiled deep within her.

She writhed under him, the bandage wrapped around his hand rough as it skirted down her bare thigh.

 _We're damaged, but we're free._

He nestled his face in her neck and she held him tightly. He rocked gently into her, back and forth. She breathed him in.

 _This is life._

x x x x

Ellen wakes up drowning and breaks the surface with a gasp.

At first she doesn't know where she is or even if she's alive. Her vision blurry, she sees only light surrounding her. Light and darkness. Red, blue and white. She's immersed in something, she's warm, and there's light, the bright, white light.

Until she hears the sound, that horrible whirring sound of the Centurion standing in the room that sends her heart racing the instant before she sees it. She clings to the wall of the tub. Terror overcomes her as she sobs. She scrambles to get away from it, shaking as she screams, liquid sloshing around her body.

 _Not again, not again. Frakking Cylons. I'd rather die. I'd rather die._

It stands motionless, except for its eye— _its blip, its eye_ —shifting from side, to side, to side.

She looks around for help, but there's no one. No one but him.

 _It. Him._

The calm washes over her, a sudden and unexpected realization.

 _It. Him. Me._

The hazy pain in her head fades.

 _I'm alive._

"Will you help me up, please?" she asks him.

For the first time in a long time, she isn't afraid.

\- end -  



End file.
